The Four Tortallian Knights of the Copper Isles
by seven losers and a monkey
Summary: The four eldest children of Aly and Nawat how decided to leave all that they know behind to become knights of Tortall.They face the oppisitions of distance, death and those who stand between them and their goals.
1. Auther's Note

Authors note

Hello thank you for clicking on my story, this makes me happy. This first chapter is all an AN not a chapter so you can just skip this or you can read some of my explanations as to why what is the way it is. First before i yet too far i wan to say i have about 87 of this story mapped out, that will make the story go faster, but there still is that 13 and to get that 13 i need some help, I do not own all of the tamora Pierce books, so if some one could run through the books and give me an explanation of all other countries mentioned in the books besides the Yamani, Copper Islanders and the Scanran cultures, also if there is any good explanation of Shang Training i would love to hear about it, that will come in to picture later :) It would be even more amazing if you could tell me a bit about the gods, any mentioned in detail in the books that are not mentioned in this fic.

The pairings in this FanFic, besides the OC's which will take main stage. Are those listed in the books, or heavily hinted at;

Alanna/George, Jon/Thayet, Kel/Dom, Daine/Numair

For the characters i have created, if you have a pairing you would like, i would gladly see what i could do, I have firm plans for all of them but it's nice to get the plans concrete.

Some of the origanal charaters may seem different from the book but i contribute this to time passing and charaters maturing, in modern times it have been estimated that we do not stop maturing until we turn 30, and even after this we continue to grow, but this is my justification, though i will try to get the charaters as close to the book as possible.

The names of the main charaters came after much thought, though some of the other pages names (edlin, blysse, Darien) come from a random book i happened to have nearby.

Aranna (Alanna, Alianne) but also because there is a video game i play, Dungeon Siege, Legends of Aranna, so it's not just a moment of stupidity.

Newal (newat) was a moment of dumbness think New wall or KneeWall

Dunavai is just i name i like Dunia is said DOON A (the 'a' is hard not soft) and Dunie is a hard e sound

Junila is a dumb name i hate it but they are twins, what am i supposed to do about it same spelling guide as for Dunia

Saralynn of NorthCliff, is another dumb moment for me, i didn't remember that Numair and Daine's child's name is Sarralyn, It comes from the name of my big sis, who is amazing

Kalisa (soft 'k' sound then Lisa) is a cousin, i like the name, her younger brother who will make an apperance later is based on another cuz

Jalisa (the Lisa is not as pronounced in this name) was the name of an person who went to my school, she was amazing adn is totally the bases for this character


	2. Chapter 1 The Beginning

**June 13, 476 H.E.**

**At the Grey Palace **

**Rajmuat in the Copper Isles**

A swift wind blew through the palace grounds relieving its occupants briefly of the hot June weather. Leaning against the sturdy metal railing of her balcony, a 30 year old woman gazed over the grounds with green-hazel eyes that for once did not register and analyze what they saw. Though her skin was tan from living in the Isles for 13 years, her skin had once been white, she was dressed as a true native with a sarong, sash in bold colors and a short white tunic. Her figure while not as neat as it was when she was a teenager still drew eyes even after 7 pregnancies and a few months into her 8th had enlarged her bosom and widened her hips and waist. She had a small, delicate nose and a wide mouth with a full lower lip. She had reddish gold hair that fell just past her shoulders.

Normally Aly looked as if she had a private joke she wanted to tell you but today just like the last week or so, she look nothing but tried and worried. She tried her best to ignore the soft murmuring behind her; she didn't want to hear it was unimportant only reiterating what she already knew. Instead she tried to focus on the positive the bright shining sun, the nearly cloudless sky and the large population of crows that flew around the palace today only one of her _brood_ was flying around the grounds at the moment. Her eldest child Aranna a lively girl of 11 was distinctive with the reddish gold feathers on her head while she was playing around with the other young crows.

After what seemed like ages she heard one of the men in the other room leave. Aly turned back around and walked into the bedroom. Lying on the bed was an old man who appeared to be about 70 years old with wrinkled skin that had once been the color of dark sugar syrup. His hair has completely white and deep set brown eyes that look like they belonged to a much younger man, indeed Nawat Crow, her husband of 13 years was only 17 years old but being a crow seventeen was old. Normally she didn't notice the fact that most people thought they were father and daughter or even grandfather and granddaughter. Now however that fact was screamed into her ears, Nawat had tripped on one of their two year old children's' toys and broke his leg during the spring and had not truly recovered. The royal healer told them that he might not live to see the birth of the children she carried now, twin Boys. Though Nawat promised he would.

As she walked over to her husband he smiled at her eyes alight, just like he had always done. It nearly broke her heart that he would leave her, with all of the children they had had. How was she to explain to the younger one where there father had gone. They had 11 children with two more on the way she was not prepared to raise them alone though she had nursemaids and servants to help her. She was crying by the time she was standing by his side. He reached for her and pulled her close against his chest rubbing her back and whispering smoothing words into her ear but his arms did not have the muscle they had once boasted. She wrapped her arms around him as he rocked her gently.

"it's alright love, I am still here, I am not going anywhere, I will stay by you side until you have these nestlings, and I will always be here to raise our nestlings with you even if I am going to rejoin the Dawn Crow and sky crow goddess"

Nawat held her till she cried herself out and pored her some water from the pitcher from the night stand when she stopped, but he still held her from his spot on the bed as she laid down next to him. They stayed there for at least an hour talking about all they had gone through then they talk about the children she was carrying right then she was thinking it was getting close to the time they should go and eat dinner with the rest of their family when Nawat said something to make her pause. She Sat up quickly and turned to stare at him.

"What did you say Nawat?"

"I said Aranna, Newal, Dunia and Junia want to fallow in the steps of their grandmother to become knights." Said Nawat naming their four eldest children "They came to ask me yesterday afternoon to help convince you to let them go."

Aly thought quickly Aranna followed after her grandmother in a lot of things red hair, a temper, an interest in weapons as well as the gift though hers was silvery rather than purple and she promised to be tall, but she had expected her to be of the Queen's ladies in waiting, she enjoyed dressing up. Newal who was eleven took after his father only he had somehow gotten purple eyes he had an interest in weapons just as Nawat had, though he did have a habit of shining his dagger till it shone but sometimes she thought he would rather fight with the crows then with humans. Dunia and Junia or Dunavai and Junila were her first set of twins, they were both followed after her they had a sight even more powerful then hers, they were intelligent and quick and they were already eavesdropping and fling around daggers but they were only nine they were perhaps they last of her children she expected to think of trying for their shields.

"Aranna is too old she will turn 12 before the term she can't try for her shield!"

"She heard the stories from Sir Nealan of Queensgrove when he came as part of the diplomatic party from Tortall following Haxanats birth." Said Nawat naming Dove's first born, a talkative young girl of 5 who was the people's favorite over her younger brother Meguile who even at 3 caused contant trouble with his nursemaids. He arranged pillows behind his back so he could sit up. "Besides 12 is not that much older it want even be mentioned, most likely."

"Dunia and Junia are too young; they don't even want to be knights." She said trying anything to give an excuse as to why they should not go.

"They will be ten this September that's old enough to go and besides, Taybur started to teach them the sword over the winter and since then they carry them everywhere that you won't see them." He met her eyes "They want to do this Aly and you should not stop them from doing what they want to do with their lives, it is a hard live yes, they will be hurt and will hurt other people but it will give them what they need, a way to make a way in the world when you are gone."

Aly flinched Nawat was blunt and she could not help be to notice that he had said 'her' not 'them' as if he were already gone. "I don't want them to regret not being here when you leave" she whispered as tears threatened once again to spill over. Nawat slid his worn hand over hers as she whipped away tears.

"They can come back during the summer. I will wait for them to get here before I go." She looked up into his eyes and saw that he himself was blinking back tears. Though her Sight showed the lie, than she realized. He didn't want them to go anymore then she did, but he know that if they said no they would find a way to go anyways and they would not return ever and their last memories of him would be of them being mad at him. She put her hand over his and nodded.

"We can send them with Thom when he returns to Tortall this winter." Her elder brother was a mage who had come to the Copper Isles to study Raka spells two years ago with his eldest son a now quiet seven year old named Theon leaving two sons who would now be two and three Alex and Gregory at home at Olau after Thom's wife Windella had died "He can get them settled and introduce when to Mother and Father."

Shortly after they finished discussing sending their children to Tortall a servant came and told them that dinner was ready. Aly helped Nawat in to his chair, an old chair with wheels on the legs, so he could get around, it was hard for both of them now that Nawat's body seemed to give up on him but she was glad that his mind was the same as it always was. Queen Dove had been generous with them and had given them and their entire family a section of the palace so all of them could be together. Normally the family stayed at their holdings on a small Island off the southern edge of Kypriang Island but Aly had to work at the palace and didn't want to leave Nawat or any of the children behind so they took them along as well. The section of the palace they were given had a large dining room big enough to fit them all so they always met up for dinner and of course it was a difficult thing to feed them and their children Thom and Theon as well as the nurses of the younger children so it took a long while for the meal to be made up but Dove had insisted saying that it was a gift to help them during the difficult time ahead, though she would not say whether it was Nawat's pending death or the birth of two more children.

On the way out of their suite they met up with their very youngest child Ochaba and her nursemaid Ativa. Ochaba was named after Ochobu because of the powerful gift the little girl would have, once she grew up a little more. Ochaba would be turning two in September along with her triplets Mandela and Ulosian. Though all three had the reddish gold hair and light skin tone of the their mother, all three were shaped more like their father though Ochaba had purple eyes, yet again a mystery as to why, she was quiet and hardly fussed which suited Ativa, who was a quiet Raka woman, herself just fine. Though Mandela and Ulosian both had green eyes and were extremely fussy hardly sleeping through the night, though all of them had been weaned already.

Nawat took Ochaba onto his lap as they moved on, it sometimes surprised her how loving he was as a father, he always took the first child he saw onto his lap when they went to dinner. A couple hallways later they ran into their middle child Myles, named after her grandfather after he died. Myles was different from every child they had had, with his black hair, green eyes and light skin he managed to both fit and stand out, Myles was turning 7 in December but already he proved to be strong and steady for all that he was quiet and liked to take his own time, which was painfully slow for everyone else. The boy joined there group easily hugging her, getting his hair ruffled by his father and kissing the baby on her head while asking how there day was and telling them everything he learned today. That was what made him so different from all their other children, besides having manners, he had both a powerful magical gift and the Sight even if he was more likely to be a healer than a mage, none of their other children had both he didn't even like shiny or sparkly things! If she wasn't positive he could change into a crown and that he liked to watch people just as she did, she would have thought he was someone else's child. Every where they went they had shiny things piled up in corners.

Myles was talking about a new spell he had learned from Thom when they turned into the last hall way before they reached the dining room. Newal was coming from the other direction. Aly glanced down at Nawat who nodded; she looked up and studied her eldest son. Newal took after his father was black hair, a strong face, and dark skin. Newal promised to be tall at 5'2 right now and still growing like a weed, at the moment he was mostly angles with long limbs making him clumsy. However he just like Ochaba had purple eyes. Newal was normally shy until he started following his older sister around now he had a habit of getting into trouble, running around and generally being a little crow boy. Though at the moment he seemed completely engrossed by the rock in his hand. Most likely a new shiny rock, she thought with amusement, Newal more than any other of her and Nawat's children liked shiny things, filling his room with all manner of tings most people would call junk.

"Newal!" She called.

The boy jumped and looked around wildly before fixing on her "I swear I didn't do it was all Aranna, I swear she made me do it."

The glow in her Sight showed that he was lying, she glared at him "What did you do Newal Crow!?" she demanded. Nawat cleared his throat it only took a second before she realized what was going on. "Oh, Newal, would you please come see your father and me half an hour after supper. There is something we need to discuss with you."

Newal ducked his head and ran into the dining room. Aly sighed, but pushed Nawat's chair down the hall. As they went Nawat passed Ochaba back to her nurse maid. As they got loader the farther down the hall they got until it reached a near deafening sound of yelling voices, laughing children screaming toddlers and harsh crow noises. She stopped again just before the door way, It sounded like the whole family was already there, something that was best avoided if at all possible, but it was that one day of the month that Nawat and she got time to themselves as it was expected to be twice as loud. Not that she minded all that much, she really enjoyed the meals they had as a family, and she found dinner alone lonely. She took a deep breath and walked into the dining room. The room itself was bare; anything on the walls had been removed after the children had had a food fight. There was a huge table made of many small tables in a line. Almost all of the chairs were filled with people, nursemaids and children. The noise level skyrocketed as they noticed their parents. Chairs fell on the ground in their haste as all 11 children ran to greet their parents, yelling at the top of their lungs what they had done that day.

Aranna with her reddish gold hair, hazel eyes, honey brown skin, silver gift and a face that was almost identical to hers and learned move flying moves as a crow. Newal had found a new shiny rock. Dunia and Junia who were almost exactly like miniature versions of herself had convinced Taybur to knife fight with them, with fake knifes, and they had won. Lokian their soon to be eight year old son with brown hair and hazel eyes like her father had gotten in trouble with one of the guards, he had pick pocked him, though he did give it back. Ziado and Xaquen, their second set of twins who were almost 3 took after their father in almost everything except their red hair, had transformed into Crows for the first time, they still had a few feathers in their hair. The triplets Mandela and Ulosian were learning to speak in a combination of simple words and crow squawks.

Eventually they got all the children to the table and start feeding them. Aly positioned Nawat and herself at the head of the table between Taybur, the godfather to some of the children and Thom who was arranging his vegetables in patterns all the while muttering and frowning. She served herself and began to eat letting the noises taking inventory of her children, Aranna and Newal where arguing about something while, Dunia and Junia seemed to be discussing something with Lokian. Myles as usual was talking with Theon about the lessons they had had that day, Theon also had the magical Gift. Xaquen still only talked in crow sounds was being talked to by Shino, Nawat's grand nephew, for not speaking human. She turned to her brother who was still muttering about some magic or another.

"Thom?" She said softly. He looked up from his vegetables and smiled at her to show he was listening. Silently she cheered, when Thom had first come he never smile but Oralia, a kind luarin noble-woman from a minor house, he had met last fall had finally made him smile. "There is something I want to ask you, about when you go back to Tortall; could you come see me immediately after dinner? It's not something I want to discuss at the table."

"Sure Aly." He said returning to mutter at his vegetables. She glanced at the table again and saw that Aranna was staring at her, she raised an eyebrow.

"Aranna!" her daughter jumped "I heard about what you did today" her eyes widened "I will see you 30 minutes after dinner in my chambers." Aranna played with her food miserably while Dunia and Junia giggled behind their hands. Aly turned to glare at them they stopped and stared at their plates "You too, I will see you both 30 minutes after dinner."

She joined Nawat's and Taybur's discussion on the crow population. The rest of dinner past without incident, the Triplets left first nearly falling asleep. She gave them their goodnight kiss and promised to play with them tomorrow, the younger set of twins left not far behind. Nawat, Thom and She left not 20 minutes after the twins did with a reminder for their elder children. Thom pushed Nawat in his chair as she led the way to their sitting room. Thom helped he settle Nawat in a sitting chair before taking his own chair across from them.

"So sis, what is this about?" Asked Thom.

"Could you please ward us against listeners please?" she asked, Thom's eyebrows shot up, but he wove out his gift anyways. "Nawat is dying. It is unlikely that he should live to see the next summer."

Thom's eyes turned symathic. "I am sorry Aly. I know that must be hard for you, is there anything I can do for you"

"That was not the only thing Aly wants to tell you, though there is something we would like you to do." Said Nawat.

"Aranna, Newal, Dunia and Junia wish to try for their shields in Tortall." Thom's eyes widened in shock and his eyebrows if possible rose higher. "We will let them, but we can't take them there, Nawat wouldn't survive to return to the Copper Isles and I can't leave because of my position as Spymaster."

"You want me to take all four to Tortall when I leave?" They nodded "What are you thinking why are you sending all four at once couldn't you have sent them at different times?! Why now don't you want them here when Nawat dies?"

"They don't know yet, Thom. But I am going to explain where they stand here today and offer them different choices for when they go." She said quietly. "That is part of the reason I asked you to be here, I don't want the younger children to find out yet."

"Alright, if they still want to go when they find out about Nawat." Thom nodded at Nawat. "Is there anything else or can I remove the warding."

"You can remove the warding" Said Nawat.

Thom removed the warding just before they heard knocking on the door. "Come in." She called

Newal opened the door and walked in followed by the twins and Aranna. They opened their mouths to say they did not do it but she held up a hand to stop them. "You are not in trouble, please come sit down." They stared at her as she motioned to the couch across from where she and Nawat were seated but shuffled into their seats silently "Thom Warding please." Thom sent out his power to seal the room again Aranna opened her mouth to protest.

"Please do not speak. I have heard from your father that the four of you want to become knights of Tortall. I cannot say how proud I am of you, choosing you life so young, it is a hard life but I believe you can do it." The children stared at her; it was clearly not what they expect to hear. "However though I do know you have all thought long and hard about this there are things we must go over before I can let you go and even think of being a page. Including a secret your father and I have been keeping from all of you." Again they were staring at her.

"First is the most important perhaps; do you still have the noble rights in Tortall to become a knight. Can the children a noble house of the Copper Isles, Even if they are the grandchildren of three noble houses of Tortall try for their Tortallian shield? It is my belief that you can. Your Grandmother Alanna the Lioness is close personal friends with King Jonathan, the current monarch, he used to be my godfather. That will give you a great amount of weight, the fact that my mother was born a Trebond and is now the Baroness of Pirate's Swoop and Olau will also give you more weight. The king cannot offend nobles like my mother, and that will offend her no matter how Jonathan phrases it.

"More importantly he cannot offend the rulers of the Copper Isles. The fact that Queen Dovasary is your godmother proves that it would offend her. However this will put pressure on both nations, if something goes wrong you could end up dead or worse but it will improve the relationship between these two nations, you are the children of two rebellion leaders in the copper Isles and the grandchildren of the Lioness."

"Mother, we know all of this already." Said Aranna carefully "and what is this secret you are hiding from us"

"I know you now the political reasons but do you know what this will mean for you, this situation has never happened before. They won't know what to do with you, nothing about you is normal. If you get hurt they will be put in a difficult position, how to punish you is also a difficult question unless I write a letter to have them treat you as nothing more than a Tortallian noble it will put them in a difficult position. As it is, when you get to the summer break unless you have a guard he cannot send you home to the Copper Isles. You yourselves will be put in many difficult positions; I am the Copper Isles Spymaster, and your Grandfather is the Tortallian Spymaster. Do you all understand where I am getting with this?"

All of them nodded "we know that as well." Said Junia

"But you don't understand why it matters or why it will be difficult to be in Tortall." Said Thom "Both your mother's and Grandfather's positions cannot be told to anyone, but some people will know, and suspect you are spying for one side or the other. But most importantly you won't be able to come home for the summer."

"The reason this summer is important" Aly said closing her eyes. "Is because your… your father… your father is dying." It was silent for a long time, she opened her eyes. All four children were sharing looks.

"Mother, we already know, we figured it out over the winter." Said Dunia softly "Father's old for a crow. We all know besides the twins and the triplets, but I am sure we can come back for the summer to visit a dying father, surely the king would allow for four children to go home for a father's death." All four of them shared a look again,

"Mother, Father; we understand all that we will go through to be a knight," Said Aranna boldly. "But we want to be knights. The Four Tortallian Knights of the Copper Isles


	3. Chapter 2 The Departure

**August 1, 476 H.E.**

**At the Grey Palace **

**Rajmuat in the Copper Isles**

Aranna looked carefully around her room for the last time seeing if she forgot anything. Seeing nothing see closed her trunk and moved it by the door. She could barely contain her excitement; today she was leaving the Copper Isles for Tortall, to begin her knight's training. She smoothed non-existent wrinkles out of her tunic taking a deep breath, it was still more than a month before her training could begin. She did all little dance in excitement before relaxing and looking out of her window a false dawn was creeping in to the garden outside, being part crow always had her up before the dawn just like all of her other siblings. A pair of crows suddenly flew by her window, she grinned, Dunia and Junia needed to be taught a lesson. She stripped quickly leaving a pile on the floor and changed into a crow, to her it was as easy as breathing. Imagining how she would fly wind rippling her feathers, the sun on her wings.

The Change was sudden but she flew out of her room narrowly missing Dunia( or Junia it was impossible to tell in crow form as both of their feathers held a distinctive greenish tinge) as she went. She pumped her powerful wings and flew as high as she could vertically till she could see the sun's rays reflected over the ocean. Then began a lazy spiral down looking around as she did, in the distance she recognized the ship she would be taking later that day. As she got lower she began crawing at the twins. _Come on, midgets come and get me. I will race you to Newal's room. _

The twins who had been chasing each other stopped and started gliding over to her, they hated to be called short, and even though there were only three years between them Aranna who was almost 5' 3 was almost a head and a half taller than their 4'6.

_You'll never win, you know that _called one.

_We always win _ said the other

_Not today little midget sisters._

The twins crawed loudly and shot towards she turned slightly and they flew past her. Aranna pumped her winged and flew past her open window and over the roof of the palace. The twins were fast in recovering and were soon on her tail and gaining fast. She pumped her wings as hard as she could, she would not lose a race to the twins no matter what, Aranna flew lower closer to the roof dogging between the chimneys. The twins followed laughing deeply in their throats, they could pass her at this point but now they only wanted to get her. She felt elation build, this was the best part of flying the twins may be able to beat her in a race but in any sort of obstacle she would beat them every time. They reached the end of the roof, there was a foot high wall. She pumped her wings faster, the twins realizing what she was trying to do stopped following her and flew higher telling her in crow to do the same. Aranna ignored them and tried to go faster, she grinned, as much as her crow mouth would allow, and she knew her beady eyes had taken on a feverish gaze.

She pulled up not a hand's width from the wall and flew over it turning sideways with right wing brushing the stone she flew into a gap, between two stone ornaments, she almost lost control as the gap turned out to be a tunnel leading down before she turned and twisted again so her back was skimming the wall and pulled her wings into her body, she let her eyes close listening to the wind streak through her ears and the echoes of her sister's crow-screams wash over her. The tunnel began to narrow as she went she extended her feathers trying to slow herself down as she opened her eyes. Up ahead she saw faint light at the end of the dark tunnel it came fast but; as she liked to think, she was faster, much faster. As she passed into the light the tunnel, having reached its narrowest point suddenly widened and sloped up she extended her wings the tips hitting the hard rock sides and looped up following the passage and turning as she went and as quick as she could flew out of the long tunnel as it opened into a mouth of a stone griffin she slowed herself and landed lightly on the griffin's front paws. She looked around as crow and human cheers went up. The courtyard she stood in was made into a garden and surrounded on all four sides by the five story palace most of her sibling's rooms were on the top floor where all the windows were open. The tunnel she had just gone through started at the roof and ended a couple feet off the ground, not bad in her opinion but the adrenalin rush she had gotten from it was already running out.

She turned back to face the crowed that was cheering for her, all of her siblings were standing in the courtyard, an impressive feat, and all but the triplets; Ulosion, Mendela and Ochaba were in crow form. She grinned as much as she could and began to check if any feathers needed preening before bowing, wings spreading and nodding to her siblings.

_Thank you, thank you. Kind people, yes, yes I know my skills reveal those of the gods. Yes, yes of course you can have one of my feathers, though I can tell you still would not be able to do what I just did._ She said in crow, responding to their praise._ By the way Dunia and Junia, I win the race._

_Not we do, we landed before you did, and you just had to go through the Griffin Hole._ Said one of the twins.

_No I am sure I won, that trick means I win by default. Who agrees with me?_ She asked them. All of the children raised their wings, or in the triplets' case, their hands (shocking the nurse maids who still were not used to them speaking crow)_ See dear sisters I win, but it's ok I know you are just jealous of my natural talents._

_The first time you went through that you broke both of your arms, and nearly your neck. Not to mention we didn't know where you were for nearly 12 hours,_ Said Newal She shrugged.

_The second time you got stuck half way down the pipe, and you broke both your wings AGAIN and had to stay in crow form for nearly a month _said Myles

Soon all of her siblings, and some of their nurse maids were telling her of all the times she had gone through Griffin Hole, She only puffed out she chest, she had stopped being hurt after the 8th time when she realized she was going to fast down the tunnel and not fast enough in the loop besides none of them had the courage to go through even once and she told them so. Newal flew over to her in response and tapped on her head with his beck. Telling her how stupid that sounded, she jumped away but he followed, the rest of their sibling's laughing finally she waited till he came to pluck at her again before ripping a feather from his wing. He cried out in pain as she took off, feather in her mouth, pumping her powerful wings and flying back to her room.

It wasn't long before Newal and the rest of her siblings came tearing after her. There was only one reason she would take one of anybodies feathers and fly them back to her room; to drop the feather in the Duke Aberan's suite. The duke had rooms a floor below hers and around the corner, he hated them and took every chance he got to get them in trouble, just as they took every chance they got to make him mad. Recently that came in the form of crow feathers in his room, while most people liked the feathers they had, all their feathers were different from normal crows in color and the fact that if the original Crow Brood child had the Gift or the Sight the feather owner would have temporary usage of the Gift or Sight. Though the duke didn't know that instead he yelled, screamed and took the feather to one of their parents who would take the feather and punish the child responsible. In the end they had made a game of it; someone would steal the feather of someone else on the opposite team and their team would do anything to get the feather into the duke's room the game ended when the feather was inside the room and the duke or someone who would give it to the duke saw the feather. the teams were always the same: Aranna, Dunia, Junia and Ziado against Newal, Lokian, Myles and Xaquen. There were no rules other then no plucking at any one's eyes, no switching teams and no limit to how many feathers in play and the entire team shared the owners' punishment.

She heard many crow squawks as she went some were speech; others were the noises of another feather being plucked. Aranna didn't stop as she went, she and Newal were of the same speed and they unlike their siblings knew that the duke woke shortly after dawn, it was a certain death if they were caught pushing the feather into the room, the duke had a bow, and he didn't leave till noon, when they had to be on the boat to Tortall it was now or never. Just as the true dawn was peaking above the horizon she reached the lip of the roof. Newal just on her tail Dunia and Junia, both with feathers in their mouths belonging to Lokian and Myles to her side, their owners following behind though everyone knew in a true race the twins always won. The Twins led in the dive down the side of the building, the dukes window was always open and if you did this exactly right the feather would fly into the middle of the room. Both the twins got theirs in they flew around the corner of the building Screaming of their victory just as Aranna slipped her feather in. She joined into the twin's call of Total Victory when she saw both Ziado and Xaquen pass their feathers in. They all flew around once before landing in a nearby window so they could see the Dukes reaction. From where they sat they could not see the feathers, but they would be able to watch the duke's response. They had just settled down and pecked Xaquen to be quiet when the duke sat up in his bed.

The duke was a short elderly man of 60 years that was always causing troubles in the court. He had strong features, salt and pepper hair that was nearly all salt, a pot belly and white skin. They watched silently as he moved to the side of the bed smoothed his white night shirt and stood. As the duke shuffled across his room to the wash room he stepped on the feathers. The duke's face turned red as her looked down at the feathers and lifted his foot. Aranna could see Newal's purple tinged black, Lokian's green and brown ribbed black, Myles's purplish green tinged and the younger twins red ribbed feathers all laying neat in a pile. The duke glared at the feathers and started jumping up and down screaming.

"THOSE DAMN CROWS, I'LL GET THEM THIS TIME "

They crow laughed as they all flew away around the corner the punishment completely forgotten as they started a new game.

It was several hours past sunrise when Aranna finally admitted it was time she bathed and ate. the younger twins, new to the flying had turned in not long after dawn and Myles never one for flying left soon after. The rest of them all left a little while earlier leaving her to practice flying, final she fly around the courtyard a bit gaining up as much speed as she could before she flew into her room not stopping until she was only a few inches until she hit the opposite wall with a force that would break her birds neck, when she transformed into a human again hitting the wall with a force that cracked the plaster. She roared with laughter until she was out of breath, a fitting way to leave the Copper Isles, she thought and she rubbed her aching ribs. She headed to the bath in the corner of her room, her entire body was covered in sweat, Flying was hard if you were not used to it. She stepped into her bath, it was still warm, and began scrubbing. She was sitting examining her fingernails; they were chipped and bloody from when she had gone down the Griffin Hole, when her old nurse maid came in. Wertha was a elderly raka woman with 7 decades under her belt, prematurely grey hair, a large mouth, a small nose and warm brown eyes.

"Wertha!" Aranna called happily. The old woman smiled and came over to her with a towel "Wertha, what are you doing back!"

"I am going with you to Tortall; you are not going to become a knight without me there to make sure you don't get in trouble." Wertha chatted as she held out the towel for her as she stood, wrapped her so she would dry and hugged her. "I am proud of you; I think you will make a good knight, one to stand up there with your grandmother, though I see you fell back into the bad habit of trying to kill yourself on the wall."

They talked of the 4 years it had be since they last saw each other as Wertha helped her dress, fed her and braided her hair. They finally ran out of things to say as they left of the docks. As Aranna gazed around her room she could not help to think that this would be the last time she would see her room but she closed the door and walked away without once looking back. That chapter in her life was over; it was too late for regrets or second thoughts.

Newal loaded his trunk in the cabin he was sharing with Thom and Theon and went back on deck to say goodbye to his family, he was the last one to join the group on the dock, and Thom was talking to his parents while Theon, Aranna and the twins were talking to the rest of their siblings. They had already made their official goodbye all that was left was the small reassurances to the youngest that yes they would come back as soon as possible. He found himself doing the same but all too soon it was time to say goodbye to his mother and father, the captain of the _Wave Surfer_ was putting the last of his goods in the holds and the younger children and his uncle and cousin were already standing on deck. He and his three sisters glanced at each other and silently agreed to do the last goodbyes to their parents one by one. Aranna went first as always, she walked up to their parents proudly and seemed to have no problems saying goodbye, he knew she didn't get along with mother very well but even with father she looked as if she would see them after lunch, but when she got onto the boat he saw her immediately turn to her old, plump, slightly frightening nurse maid. Dunia went next but her goodbyes were tearful same as Junia's and when they were both done they hugged each other like they would be ripped apart. When it was his turn he found he almost ran to hug his mother, he was not the kind of person who completely idolized his mother but leaving her he knew would be hard.

"I love you, Newal" She whispered as they broke the hug.

"I love you too Ma," As Newal turned to his father he defiantly knew that this goodbye was far harder. He looked at his father, he was wiry but most of his old strength was gone, his was sitting in his wheeled chair watching him with wet eyes, his broken leg would never fully heal and was bound tightly to a board, his white hair was kept and his skin once a rich sugar syrup color was faded and wrinkled. Newal hugged his father tightly trying to ignore that it might be the last time he ever saw the man he admired so much.

"I love you, son. I know you are going to be a great knight, I will wait for you to come back this summer, but I will watch over you forever."

"Love you too Pa. I promise, I will be the best knight ever. I will protect everyone and earn lots of titles and medals and when I have children I am going to be as an amazing father as you are."

Newal ran back to the boat after that, and stood next to his uncle as they sailed away, his parents waved, but they were blurry with tears. Uncle Thom put a hand on his shoulder briefly before going down below decks the others flowed once they were out of the harbor, but he stayed long after everyone one else left. Silently he made himself a promise; He would become the greatest knight ever, far better than Sir Raoul the Giant Killer, Lady Kelardy the Protector even Alanna The Lioness. He would make his father proud.


	4. Chapter 3 to Tortall

**August 11, 476 H. E. **

**The Emerald Ocean**

**The **_**Wave Surfer**_

Aranna leaned over the rail of the _Wave Surfer_ staring into the clear blue waters with the sun Bright and warm overhead. Today finally after a week and a half at sea they were expected to reach Port Legann later in the afternoon and she could not wait to get off the boat. During the entire journey everyone except her and Uncle Thom were sea sick, even today when there was nothing but small rollers you could hear Newal and Junia puking off the poop deck, Theon, Dunia and Wertha were asleep below decks. She had spent the entire journey learning about ships and developing her gift with Uncle Thom she wasn't even allowed to fly because they had to keep that a secret. If they did not get to land she felt like she was going to explode and not even Wertha's threat to ship her back to the Copper Isles if she couldn't control her temper would prevent her. Worse was the fact that next they had to go on a three day ride to Pirate's swoop which would be only a good day's fly to her. Not even the excitement at meeting her grandma could make her control her temper. She had no idea how long she stood there ranting in her head about anything and everything that made her angry before she heard a voice behind her.

" 'ranna" She turned around Dunia was standing next to her holding her stomach looking pale and slightly green under her slight tan "How far from port are we" was all her younger sister got out before she started puking over the rail.

Aranna grimaced but she wrapped one arm around her sister and used the other to smooth the loose hairs from her horse tail way from her face trying her past to ignore that fact that Dunia was dry heaving now and that she was too skinny. She didn't like it when any of her siblings were sick, normally she got mad at them and pushed them away, she herself hated to be sick and was not good at giving sympathy, but Dunia was different. When Dunia was younger almost two years old she had been really sick, she had almost died, all of her other siblings including Dunia were too young to remember but to Aranna who had spent quite a lot of time watching her younger sister being sick, could remembered a lot and none of it very good. She had accidently healed Dunia stopping her from dying, nearly costing her own life in exchange from using too much of her Gift, but ever since she could not stand for Dunia to be sick even if it was just a cold.

"We should get to Port Legann later today Dunia, and when we get there we can eat Tortallian food and see if it is really as good as Ma says it is."She whispered soothing words into her sister's ear as she stopped heaving.

"Good I can't wait, I feel like I could eat this, Port Legann, out if it's winter stock." Said Dunia Wryly before she grabbed Aranna's arm. "Aranna could you please heal me I am tired of sleeping and throwing up, I want to be able to enjoy my first day in Tortall."

Aranna bit her lip, she could not say no. "I would have to ask Uncle Thom, but for now let's get you down below."

She pulled Dunia closer and started walking her down below. "But I don't want to sleep," Dunia complained.

"I would rather sleep than puke, wouldn't you?" Dunia didn't reply.

She guided her sister down to the cabin they shared with Junia and Wertha who was snoring on the lower left bunk. She lifted Dunia on to the top right bunk and went back out into the hall and knocking on the next door, and entering. Uncle Thom was kneeling down next to Theon purple gift in his fingers, putting him back to sleep. Her uncle did not look up and she did not speak, he liked to work in silence and by the wrinkles in his forehead he appeared to be having difficulties getting Theon to sleep. When he finished he watched his son for a long time. Aranna waited as patiently as she could trying to keep silent, watching her uncle until he noticed her. Uncle Thom and Theon looked almost exactly the same for all that they were father and son, Both had a face her mother had called "pure Grandpa George" and red hair like Grandma, both were stocky but of middling height the only real difference between the two besides the fact that Uncle Thom had wrinkles around his eyes and mouth was that he had purple eyes while Theon had blue eyes, From her aunt supposedly though she had never met the woman.

Finally her uncle spoke. "What do you need Aranna?"

"I want to learn how to cure Sea Sickness" she said trying to sound like she was not as impatient as she truly was.

Uncle Thom blinked and looked up at her. "What did you say?"

"I want to learn to cure Sea Sickness"

Uncle Thom just stared at her and blinked slowly as if he was trying to find the true meaning behind her words. Inwardly she smiled, when they had first began making the plans for her and her siblings in Tortall, Uncle Thom had said there was nothing that they could possibly do to surprise him. Which in most times would be true he was an amazing judge of people and though she had surprised him alot when he first came to the Copper Isles two years ago he learned fast what he could expect from them. Unfortunately Aranna took it as a challenge, though he did not have much of a temper, Uncle Thom being confused or surprised was almost as good and since the journey began she had gotten him three times, this being the third. The first had been on the second day of the journey when it became clear that most of the ship's crew wanted anything to do with her and her siblings, cousin and Wertha were too sick to do anything but be sick, so she had asked her uncle to teach her how to use her gift. She was well known for disliking her gift she would rather have a sword then to learn to use it but there was nothing else to do so she got her uncle Thom to teach her. The last one had been only a few day ago when she mentioned to him that she should learn a little healing as well, broken bones and cuts mostly, which was also something she would normally never do. So Aranna asking him to teach her about how to cure sea sickness, they had never talked about diseases and the like done to her unnatural fear of being sick, should have been like Junia asking to play with snakes, something she feared like most people feared death.

"Why in god's name would you want to learn how to cure sea sickness?" Asked Thom finally when he had decided that yes that was exactly what she was indeed asking.

"I want to heal-"

Thom cut her off "no, we will be in at port Legann by tonight at the latest I will not teach you to heal sea sickness when there is no point for you to learn."

"But I-"

"No. How to cure someone of sea sickness is not something you are capable of. You are too new for healing, even the most experienced healers won't even try, and there is no point. Sea sickness is not made by germs the most you can do is stop the symptoms and that will take too much of the gift to do for any long period of time. The best thing for it is to avoid boats and sleep and I will not teach you how to induce sleep, if you use too much of your gift the person will not wake up" Uncle Thom's voice was slowly raising and his purple eyes were blazing "I do not care for your foolishness, one day it will get you killed and making foolish demands to learn something you are not prepared to learn. I should have never began teaching you to heal or any magic at all. Now go before I throw you out."

Uncle Thom was yelling by the time he was finished and his magical gift was crackling in the air around him. She left without another word and ran up on dock heart racing. The crew was very quiet clearly they had heard Uncle Thom yelling at her and they could not possibly figure out why Aranna was grinning widely. Aranna felt more excitement then she had in a long time. She had never seen Uncle Thom angry, it was like nothing she had ever seen before, with his purple eyes dancing lie fire and his gift flowing out of him crushing down on her and his red hair and face that almost made he seem like an angry god. Thom now took the award for being the best angry person ever; she could not believe she had a chance to see it. Now she would have to focus on more way to make him angry.

The crew members made a wide girth around her with her silver gift rippling around her and her eyes alight with a mad light, she barely seemed sane as the young girl replayed Thom's anger over and over again in her mind, plotting the next time she could see it.

Junia welcomed the blissful level; unmoving ground that was the dock as if it was a god sitting down as soon she found a place to sit that was out for the way and leaned against her chest of belongings that Uncle Thom had put there. She was letting her stomach settle with her eyes closed day dreaming about the next meal she would have, the first one should would be able to keep down since the journey began it was past midday so they would have to eat soon or Uncle Thom would have four starving crow kids on his hands when she felt Dunia come and sit next to her. She opened her eyes and smiled at her sister, it had been a while since she had talked to her and she was beginning to miss her. They started talking about anything and everything that came to mind as they studied the docks. The dock at Port Legann was not supposed to be as busy as Port Cayann but it still held as wide of a selection of people as the docks at Rajmuat if not in the quantities. People from Carthak with their dark skin and many jewel traded with pale skinned Scanran's while the tilted eyed, blank faced Yamanis discussed weather with Gallans who were almost as pale as Scanrans and Tyran's who were almost as dark as Carthakis as Black eyed Bazhir argued with tan Tusaines and Marens, even some raka from the copper Isles were in the throng of people yellow with the best of them against Tortallians.

In other words Port Legann was the same as any port where trade was happening and the any difference between this dock and the one they left in the Copper Isles was the food smells that drifted to them, which were not as diverse or flavorful, and the colors, which were more bland and boring. Of course to them this did not matter as much, with their Sight it was just as colorful as any Copper Isles port everywhere they turned they saw people lying, using the Gift, and hiding weapons. There were people with all sorts of summer colds and fevers and pregnant women waddling past. The most interesting of all, in her opinion at least, was her ability to See what people intended. A fat Tyran was going to lie to a Tortallian man who was the Dock Master. While a Scanran woman was intending to rob an aging Bazhir man who intended to bed her. She Saw for an instant a Yamani man flash with murderous intent but it faded soon after the Maren, who it was directed at, left and another Yamani joined the first.

Soon after she and Dunia ran out of things to talk about the rest of their family joined them. Newal and Wertha were supporting each other, both had had a worse case of sea sickness then she and her twin had, Wertha was watching the docks with a careful looks while trying to appear not to she was spying for Mother though only they knew. Newal was glaring at Aranna with an almost murderous intent though her sight only showed that he was going to get revenge. Aranna however was looking around as if it would all disappear if she looked away, clearly she was excited about something because her silver gift was crackling just under her skin and from the way she occasionally glanced back at Uncle Thom she had finally accomplished at making him angry. Uncle Thom was carrying Theon who looked like he still might be sick but with her Sight she could not see what was wrong but that was to be expected as Uncle Thom's purple Gift as well as Theon's own blue Gift was coursing through his veins. Uncle Thom however was low on his Gift and was tired, worried, angry, happy, excited and embarrassed all at the same time. Newal and Wertha sat on chests next to theirs and both started to look around. Aranna however took a quick inventory of the entire group and their luggage nodding at each of them when they made eye contact and started back to staring at the people around them. Uncle Thom put Theon in Wertha's hold, and this close Junia could see that Uncle Thom was using his magical Gift to keep Theon asleep and his stomach from heaving up everything he had eaten.

"Keep an eye out for your Grandparents; they are supposed to meet us here." Said Uncle Thom turning away from his son.

She nodded and started scanning the crowd again, supposedly they were going to be easy to find though she had never met them before. Her Grandfather was supposed to be of an average build and height with hazel eyes and salt and pepper hair but he was god touched and he had the Sight and with not very many people with either it would be easy to find him. Grandmother would be even easier to find, short and stocky with red hair streaked with white, with purple eyes, and she was also god touched and had a purple gift. Not many people were god Touched, Gifted or Sighted in this crowd so they should stick out like a sore thumb. They were still looking half an hour later listening to their stomachs growling when they heard a voice behind them.

"Well Thom, I am glad you decided not to become a knight, or you would be dead already."

Junia turned to look at the speaker and was nearly blinded before she changed her Sight so she could see. Her grandparents stood behind them both looking pleased with themselves. Grandpa had brown hair and only a few grey hairs at his temples, nowhere near what she would call salt and pepper, his hazel eyes had less green then her own even less then her mother's, but they were laughing just as her mother's often were, He was grinning widely and you could see his perfect white teeth, and she could tell in her sight that he was hiding throwing knifes in varies places around his body as well as normal fighting daggers under his white cotton shirt and dark breaches and well traveled boats, without her sight she would most likely not be able to tell him apart from anyone else on the street unlike his wife who drew eyes like moths to a flame. Her grandmother had more white hair than red and even though she was short and stocky she was less so then Junia had imagined maybe 5' 4' or so. Though she did have purple eyes that stood out even more than Thom's, Newal's and Ochaba's did. Grandma was dressed the same as her husband though she had her weapons on the outside, a fine sword and dagger at her hip, Junia would do anything to get her hands on a sword that fine. Before they had left Uncle Taybur had given each of them a blade he had taken from the armory, they were several years old and none of their blades were suited for them, though he had gotten new sheaths and furniture for each one. All of them were locked into Uncle Thom's chest. Uncle Thom walked over and embraced them.

"Mother, Father, it's been a while how are you and how was your trip down to Port Legann."

Grandma glared at him as Grandpa chuckled "I am not so old yet that I need to be treated like someone old and infirm, Thom. Rather I should be asking you how your journey went, by the looks of it you got five youngsters and an old woman and all but the oldest youngest and yourself had sea sickness."

Thom grimaced and opened his mouth to speak but Wertha beat him to it. "Don't be call'en me an old woman; if I got more than a couple of years of you I will be surprised. Besides unlike you I can wiggle my digits without pain." Wertha held up her fingers and demonstrated. Junia glanced at her grandmother's hands just before she moved them behind her back, they were scarred and bony like most old people's hands but all the joints were swollen slightly. Her Grandfather was laughing again; it was defiantly a well practiced laugh.

"She's got ya' there lass" her grandfather said putting a hand on her grandmother's head, it was just below his shoulder and extending his hand out to Wertha who shook it "I' m George, and I don't want any, lord of baron of Pirate swoop and Olau out of ye, It's just George and this is Alanna."

"Wertha Harazi. I was Aranna's, she is the oldest, nurse maid when she was younger, and I choose to come with her to watch over her as she became a knight."

"You are the only one to return to your charge? None of the other's did?" Junia smiled her grandfather already knew that Wertha was a spy. He was most defiantly Tortall's Spymaster.

"The others didn't take as many knocks to the head as I. They are all over at a pub in the Copper Isles drinking to the Tortallians and the great Emerald Isles" Said Wertha.

Junia smile grew wider as she tilted her head so that her face was covered with her bangs. Her mother had made it a tradition that when her children turned eight the nursemaids had the options to stay on as a servant or leave. So far only Aranna's had stayed. They were famous for scaring there nurse maids away. Myles was turning 7 this December and his nursemaid had left shortly before the summer began and Lokian's was having to double up and for all that they are the easiest going it hardly looked like she was going to last to December when Lokian turned 8 let alone staying another year after that. She heard Dunia breath in sharply as she tried to stop from laughing and she could not help but to grin when their nursemaids had left they had chased after them in crow form raining down droppings and other objects down on top of them. They had gotten in trouble for it but it had been worth it at the time.

"Is that Theon? What's wrong with him?" She looked up; her grandma was bent over Theon purple gift in her fingers

"It's nothing Ma, he was sick so I put him to sleep, he should wake up just before dinner time." Grandma glared at Thom and was about to say something when they heard a long and loud growling noise, several people walking by stopped to stare. She stared too, Aranna was staring at the ground red with embarrassment, when the rumbling finally stopped everyone was laughing except Thom and Grandma who was staring at her as if they could not believe what they just heard.

"geez Aranna when was the last time you ate?" asked Newal when he caught his breath.

"Breakfast, I got distracted around Mid-day." Aranna said quietly.

"By what?" She asked, there had been nothing at all to do on board.

"I finally managed to get Uncle Thom to lose his temper." Every one stopped laughing.

"What" asked Dunia trying to see if she heard right

"I didn't even know he had a temper." She added

"Me neither, but it was amazing! I wish you had been there to see it."

Aranna had a distant look and a smile on her face, she shook her head, Aranna's had an obsession with getting people angry and was determined to get everyone angry at least once just to see what they looked like. She turned back to look at the adults, Wertha was shaking her head, she knew of Aranna's bad habits; Thom was staring at his boots. Grandma alternating smiling at Uncle Thom and Aranna, it was slightly frightening, while Grandpa was grinning at them as if it was a normal thing he took a few steps closer as her studied them his hazel eyes seem to take in every detail though he was still smiling slightly.

"So that has to be Aranna and you have to be Newal" Grandpa gestured at Aranna and Newal then turned his attention to them he bent over so his eyes were level with theirs "so you two have to be Dunavai and Junila."

"Dunia and Junia" She supplied

He studied them for a while longer before pointing at her. "You are Junila or Junia so she must be" he pointed at her twin. "Dunavai or Dunia." They both nodded to show he was correct but they were staring at him wondering how he knew. "I have dealt with more pairs of twins then I ever had need to. If I had seen you some time after your birth I would not need to guess but I haven't been back to the Copper Isles in nearly ten years." He straitened and smiled "you can call me Grandpa or whatever version of that you want, even George if that tickles your fancy, besides Poppop, I can't stand Poppop. However you cannot call your grandmother by 'Grandmother' you can call her Alanna, Mam or Lioness. She has a deathly fear of growing old and the deathly part manages to rub onto grandchildren who call her Grandmother." The last part was nearly a whisper like it was a secret but Grandpa smiled to show it's wasn't true, but her Sight showed that he wasn't lying.

"How about we get all of this to the Inn, George, the most be hungry." A loud rumbling, this time from Dunia punctuated Alanna's statement. "Very hungry."

They loaded all of the chests they had traveled with into a wagon that Grandpa and Alanna had brought with them. Grandpa seemed to know a lot of people around the town, ad he went he would tell her about them and about some of the buildings around them. When they finally arrived at the Inn, a place called 'The Broken Table' though there was nothing broken about it, all of the children of the Crow Brood had their stomachs growling, if not one then the others until it was almost a continues rumbling which both Grandpa and Alanna found immensely funny. Though they were the only ones laughing. Wertha and Thom knew how much food they consumed and with a rumbling like this they made sure that grandpa and Alanna were paying for the meals. When they arrived at the Inn and both Wertha and Thom told the Inn's Chef to make at least one more pot of stew if not two pots, Their grandparents laughed, they laughed as they all go settled into their rooms for the night, they all shared one huge room which was really the attic. They laughed until all four of them asked for the Inn's chef to bring in the second pot of stew. Then it was Wertha's and Thom's turn to laugh. After they finished eating their late midday meal they began to talk of what the next month. They would leave for Pirate's Swoop in the morning where they would start a little training with Alanna and in just over a month they would leave for Corus, where they would become pages. They went to bed early the night and just before she fell asleep she realized that what she imagined of her grandparents and most importantly Tortall was not true. As she finally closed her eyes for sleep she thanked all of the gods listening that she decided to come to Tortall to become a knight.


	5. Chapter 4 The Palace

**August 12- September 20, 476 H.E.**

**Pirates Swoop**

**Western Coast of Tortall**

They had left Port Legann and made it back to Pirates Swoop in a record 10 days time. Grandma didn't want to waste time that they could be using training so she told them about all the things they would need to know for their page training, it was interest in a weird left handed way to listen to the knight who bards sung about telling the history of Tortall and her adventures as a young knight. When they reached Pirate's Swoop she was surprised to find that it was nothing like what her Ma had described. There was a double wall that once at least 50 feet tall if not taller. The keep was bigger as well with 6 towers instead of 3. There was also an Armory that Grandma had started that produced light weight weapons and Armor. It had also been her 12th birthday so Grandma gave her a sword Which she called Copper Light, as the apprentice who had made it had messed up and left odd patterns of copper splashed across the blade. Though only Wertha's reminder that it was the 22nd of August had stopped her from forgetting her own birthday.

At first Aranna and her siblings had been surprised at the changes from what their mother had told them until Pop Pop reminded them that Grandma had retired seven years back, leaving the title of Champion in uncle Alan's hands until King Jon retired and his son Prince Roald took the Throne, and since then she had taken on new projects annually, they were to be her next project. They had little over a month to wait till they had to go to Corus and start their page training and on their very first day at the Swoop Grandma had began her new project with a vigor that shocked even some if the oldest servants; Grandma had them start training with everything she could get her hands on. Staffs, daggers, shields, bows and arrows, swords, axes, maces, hand to hand combat, wrestling, riding and while attempting to do all the weapons and even a lance also riding.

By the end of the second day every one besides her was scared of Gran Gran expect her. Aranna had discovered that Grandma would always take the award for the best angry person ever, it was an amazing sight to see, and by the end of the first week Aranna had gotten her 8 times and forced her to do practice bout of swords by the end of the Second week all the novelty of making Alanna and Grandpa mad had worn off, as had all the excitement of coming to Tortall. Each morning they slept to dawn and was forcefully ripped from their beds, breakfast of eggs and strips of port called bacon tasted bland and nasty, bruises and sore muscles made the morning's practice of weapons miserable and the lunch of left over meats and cheeses didn't make the afternoon any better from where Alanna yelled at them the history of Tortall while they rode or shot various kinds of bows. Dinner looked up a bit when Grandpa sometimes told them stories of his time as the rogue but mostly they were told more about Tortall and quizzed about what they had learned earlier. Then after dinner Alanna beat into her how to use her gift while the others were thought ways to protects against attacks, namely pirate attacks on the Swoop Before they all fell asleep in one big heap and had to be carried to bed.

Their days only differed twice in the first three weeks, the first was the third day when Alanna first started them on horses, giving each of them a mare that was descendents from the first horse she had had as a knight, Moonlight. They all more or less looked the same, Aranna called her's Night Shine, mostly because the mares Black coat had small patches of white buried deep down and white socks that seemed to glow. Newal called his Promise, not that she knew why his horse was as black as hers. Dunia called hers Night as the horse had no color to her at all. Junia named her's Kanye, which meant Black in Raka, as her mare was even darker then Dunia's. OF course the minute they had them named Alanna spent hours showing them how to groom them the right way and how to clean tack and that was before she showed them how to saddle them. Once they learned that she then spent an hour making them mount and dismount until she thought she was going to die. Then after riding for two hours, Alanna made them race to clean the tack, to saddle up the mares and to do everything else even remotely related to horses a million times before she was sure they could do it all in their sleep.

The day they first began to learn the sword was worse. First Alanna tested all their swords then watch them as they practiced for half an hour before she took them all to the armory and showed them how to make the blades before taking them out and having them practice various positions of the blade and moves until she thought her arms might fall off, then they did a practice bout all four of them against Alanna, they all got beaten like day old laundry, before they paired up with each other a fought until they couldn't even see, even the horses were easier to take care of then sword play led by the lioness.

Towards the end of the third week Alanna came down with a bad chest cold. They had been excited, perhaps they could get a break and fly a little, and not the kind of the horse, that hadn't had time to fly since they left the Copper Isles. Instead Grandpa took over their torturing, and torture it was, Her forced them to work with daggers and Hand to hand combat in the early morning before forcing them to learn secret codes and their reading and writing skills before passing them off to the village healer woman called Melina who beat into them how to heal without the gift by learning to make potions and other healing herbs as well as how to wrap wounds and set bones. Then she taught Aranna how to use her gift, if she had ever thought Alanna had been a hard teacher than Melina was the Devil in disguise. By the time Alanna came back in the early part of the 4th week it was almost a relief, before she decided that they weren't trying hard enough or wasn't good enough and made them train with weighted weapons it was almost as bad as Alanna being sick, not that they would trade going back to George and Melina's training willingly.

By the end of five weeks they all but sprinted to get packed, even Wertha, who had only watched them during the training, had hurried them along. They had celebrated The Twins birthday on the road to Corus. Alanna gave Junia a good set of daggers from the Armory; some were for throwing though there was two meant for fighting. Dunia however was given a weapon called a glaive, it was a heavy staff with a long piece of steel that was shaped almost like a scythe blade on the ends , Dunia had been really good at the staff and apparently it was the weapon of choice of the Knight who was training them, Sir Keladry of NorthCliff formally of Mindelan, the Protector of the small.

It took them 8 days to reach the Palace two days ahead of schedule, when the term was supposed to officially start the next day. The city of Corus was much bigger then they had thought it would be and took their breath away, Alanna was very smug about that. When they went through the city she was surprised to find that there were no slaves anywhere, like there was in the Copper Isles. She was also surprised at how dull the colors seemed compared to the Isles though she didn't mention that to Alanna who was still smug at their expressions from when they entered the city. The Palace was bigger than that at then that at the Isles and just as awe inspiring. They dismounted in the courtyard and gave there mounts to a fleet of grooms who took them into the palace stables. There was an old groom who came out to meet them called Stefan who Alanna greeted like an old friend. Thought the groom was at least ten years older than Alanna. They talked for a while before another man ran out he was about 20, who was introduced as Terry Stefan's youngest Grandson who worked the stables with him. Terry started to pull Stefan to the stables saying something about stupid pages but Stefan only whacked him with the cane he carried and made his own way towards the stables like he owned the place.

Alanna smiled as he walked away and she turned back to them. " That's Stefan he had been working in the stables long then I have been alive, he was here the day I showed up to begin my page training, I would advise you to stay on the good side of Stefan and Terry. They know George and can send messages to him and get you things when you need them if you ask nicely, now come on, Kel won't wait forever, she hates it when people are late."

Aranna blinked, SHE had been the one who had just spent 20 minutes talking to a stable master, not that she said that aloud either, she didn't want to start the new term with bruises from fighting with Alanna, she didn't think Alanna would heal them like she did before they set off. Alanna led the way through the palace, there were a lot of people and they all seemed to know her, soon stared in admiration others a little fear while still others nodded and smiled at her and there didn't seem to be any since to the variety of looks. Alanna only brushed past them all setting a quick pace and walking through a seemingly endless set of halls before stopping in front of a door that look exactly the same as all the others in a hall that looked no different from any other beside a small bronze sign that said ' Baroness Keladry of NorthCliff, Training Master' or that was what it had said originally expect someone had carved into the metal more words and Alanna reached into a pocket and put a small plate over 'Master' and sealed it with her Gift until it read 'Baroness Keladry of NorthCliff, Training Mistress. _Protector of small things other than pages_.'

Alanna nodded, seemingly satisfied and knocked on the door. Aranna looked around and spotted two pages sitting on a hard wooden bench. They both were bruised and battered and about Newal's age but laughing nearly silently. One was a girl, tall for her age of eleven with brown hair pulled back into a braid that fall nearly down to her waist, blue eyes and a small feminine face that was clearly meant for laughing. The other was a boy who was slightly shorter and the same age but even more battered than the girl, with dark hair, olive skin and slanted eyes like a Yamani but had emerald eyes and had an expressive face like a Tortallian.

The door opened with a jerk and a tall woman stood in the door way. She was tall, 5'11 with brown hair that was lose down to her shoulders and a dreamer's hazel eyes, a few years older than her Ma. She moved like she should almost be dancing but was clearly used to swinging heavy weapons. She smiled at Alanna and looked at her and her siblings who were for once being quiet and not causing trouble more turning her head down the hall and looking at the two pages who were trying to get their laughter under control. Her smile turned into a grimace and she glared at the two.

"Kalisa, 2 weeks of work under master Oakbridge" the pages stopped laughing at the woman's slightly musical voice and the girl –Kalisa- opened her mouth to complain "3 weeks and no lunch with your father for a week when he comes back from fief Disartif you speak again. Edlin, 3 weeks in the stables."

"But you don't even know what we did!" said Edlin in disbelief. "and why is mine harder than her's"

"4 weeks Edlin and I don't need to, no arguing, Kalisa's is worse than yours and you know it. Term starts tomorrow and when it starts there will be NO arguing back. Now go, before I tell you mother that it had been you who had bent her glaive."

Kalisa and Edlin ran down the hall as fast as they could, she smiled, and if this woman wasn't the mother of Kalisa and good friends with Edlin's mother she would be surprised. Alanna was chuckling as the woman led them inside. The room was small it's wooden walls were decorated with the Royal crest, the crest of Fief Northcliff, the personal crest of Sir Keladry and more weapons than she could put name to. It was clearly an office with stacks of papers littering the desk in the center and all the quills and jars of ink

"Well Kel, they couldn't say that it's not your child even if they wanted to." Said Alanna, she blinked in surprise; this was Sir Keladry, The Sir Keladry. She hadn't expected her to have kids or to be as feminine as this.

Baroness Keladry smiled at Alanna "only the lords of Macayhill and Aila would say that."

"They still after you about that?"

"How could they not be, it's not like anything has changed. You can't say I am anything close to normal."

"That is true" Agreed Alanna before motioning to them. "These are Aly's , my youngest's , Children. The oldest turned twelve in late August, that's Aranna, The boy turns eleven November 9th, that's Newal and the Twins, Dunavai and Junila turned ten on the road." She pointed to each of them as they were introduced.

Baroness Keladry studied them before speaking again "Do you have a letter from their parents?" Alanna passed her once and she read it twice before she looked up again. "You couldn't have sent them all at different times, why send them all at once?"

"It was the only time we were able to guilt trip out Mother into letting us go." Aranna answered, Alanna snorted and Baroness Keladry chuckled.

"There is no crying over spilt milk." Baroness Keladry said rising "you are aware of your own situation, so I want bother with that. Here at the Palace you will call me at all times; Master or Mistress Kel or Kel. Anything else will get you punishment work. You are to be treated nothing more than four pages from Pirate's Swoop so you will get no special treatment. You do your work without compliant, if you don't finish your work you don't complain when your teachers punish you. If you are unfit to be a knight at the end of this year, you will be sent home. For you girls if there is any boy other the your brother in your room the door is to be open same if you are in their room, if you are found braking this rule you will be sent home" She blinked, Kel could talk fast. She and her siblings nodded their acknowledgement at this.

"You will work hard here. You will only be required to serve at tables on great holidays and special occasions. However you are required to run errands for any lord or lady who asks. You are not however to become the body servant of any lord, lady or Page was demands it of you, there is NO hazing in my training. You have the Gift, Aranna you will go to a class to learn to develop that gift, All four of you have wild magic, you will also learn to develop that with Veralidaine Salmalin or Daine, on her time. Now however you will be escorted to your rooms and ready your selves for dinner remember to put away you things neatly. When the bell rings you will stand in the hall with the other new pages and receive a page sponsor who with help you find your way in the palace, and then you will go to dinner."

"Yes Kel" Said her and her siblings when Kel seemed to want a sound that they were still listening.

"I understand that only Aranna has brought a servant with her so one with be assigned to the rest of you, please do abuse the serving men and women or I will set Salma on you, and you want like what she will do to you then. That covers everything, I think." Kel finished, Alanna let out the laugh she had been holding.

"Not- Not as scary as Duke Gareth the elder," Alanna finally said when she got her self under control "or as sensible as Lord Wyldon, nor as practiced as Padraig MaHinch , but you got them stunned in to silence and that is good enough."

Kel nodded, "well it's nice to know I can compare to the last three training masters, you will dine with me tonight I hope, Alanna, it would be nice to dine with someone who the pages don't whisper that I slept with them and got my position or children," When Alanna nodded Kel turned back to them. " As for you four you will go down this hall turn left at the last branch, turn right three halls down and go up the stairs at the end of the hall two stories, down the first hall way on the left is the page dorms, there is a name plate on each door and a servant to open the door, remember what I told you. Dismissed."

She stared for a minute before realizing that it was time for them to go before turning and walking out of the office her siblings trailing behind her, she followed Kel's instructions without thinking. The Training master was not scary in the way that Alanna was but had the sort of bearing that made her respect her, she had a feeling that this was going to be just as hard as Alanna's training only in a different way.


	6. Chapter 5 The Other Pages

The way to the pages wing was almost completely empty besides the occasional servant and they found their way without getting lost. The hall the dorms were on was more of a series of common rooms with 10 doors evenly spaced on the sides, there was 8 common areas. It had just happened that Aranna had the corner room in the last common area on the left side right before another stair case and Newal and the Twins had the second to last also on the left side. Aranna was all alone in her common area according to the sign in on the wall. She knocked on the second door on the right, the corner room, with her name on it. Wertha answered the door almost immediately.

"You took forever, did you get lost?" asked Wertha as she ushered her inside.

"No, Kel- the training master- gave us good directions; she just had a lot to say." She said distractedly as she looked around.

Her rooms here were larger than the rooms she had had at Pirate's Swoop and those as the Palace in the Copper Isles and bigger than the room she had had at home on Cansiante Island. The walls were white washed and there were two wooden doors, one leading to the privy the other to a closet. The room was ten paces long and 7 wide with the door to the hall on the short side behind her and a window on the other short side, an advantage of a corner room. There was a bed in one corner to her left hand side, and a chair and desk, was sitting at the end of it in the other left corner, away from the two doors.

"Come on, you have to get ready, the bell will ring soon."She was forced out of the thoughts by Wertha's gentle push to the privy. "Get the worst of the road grime of in the wash stand, I'll have your clothes ready when you come out."

The privy was small but clean and Wertha had a bowl of warm water waiting for her. Aranna took off her breaches and shirt she had worn on the road and wash her hands and face in the water, more than a little surprised when she saw the water tinge brown when left it. She dried her hands and face and walked out into the main room wearing her loincloth and breast band. On the bed were a fresh loin cloth and breast band, a red sarong, gold sash, red shirt, gold tunic and leather slippers. She smiled; Wertha had decided to dress her as a Copper Islander, only in Tortallian colors. She stripped off the rest of her dirty clothes and pulled on the fresh. Wertha came out a short while later to comb out her hair and re-braid it before returning to the closet to unpack. Aranna was admiring the effect in the mirror; the braid ended a bit lower then her shoulders soon she would cut it, when the bell rang. She slipped out of her room and into the hall where her siblings were gathering.

All three of them were dressed in Tortallian colors, the page's uniform was red and gold, but only Newal was wearing the uniform, it looked good on him, even if he had narrow shoulders. The twins were both dressed as a Copper Islander; they were more comfortable that way. There were other pages milling around, a larger group farther down the hall led by Kel. But there were four other pages who seemed to be first years like them. One was a gangly boy with bright red hair and brown eyes who alternated between staring at her and then turning to watch the crowd coming at them. Another was a short plump boy with dark hair and the palest eyes she had ever seen who was staring at the floor and yawning like he would like nothing more than to sleep. Then there was a short, but skinny and weak looking boy with curly dark hair, dark eyes and the golden brown skin of a K'mir who was fidgeting under his tunic that looked too big for him while staring at the floor looking as if he would very much like to melt into it. Finally there was a girl with light brown hair bordering on blond and deep brown eyes who was bouncing slightly on her feet with excitement. The crowd of people stopped shortly in front of them and Kel smiled slightly at each of them.

"There is eight new pages for me to torture this year, fun, I hope you last longer than the last bunch." She heard the small boy gulp and the pale eyed boy shifted uncomfortably, though a few of the older pages laughed but Kel continued after only a slight hesitation. "Alright we need page sponsors, but first name and Fief." She pointed to the girl.

"Blysse of Cavall"

"Cavall," Kel repeated and turned to the older pages some of which was raising their hands. "Taren of Malven, go with Blysse of Cavall."

Taren was a tall third year page with short messy brown hair and grey eyes, he filled out his tunic well but he favored his right leg, he stood by the Blysse without showing any emotion or saying anything, Blysse flinch a little when he smiled at her. Kel pointed to the Redhead.

"Jarred of Hollyrose." He said quickly in a high pitched voice.

"Hollyrose" this time a strong looking boy with sandy blond hair and smiling brown eyes rised his hand and was called "Derrick of Kennan"

Kel pointed to her next. "Aranna of Pirate's Swoop" The pages stared at her, admittedly she her name was similar to Alanna's and she defiantly look like the Lioness's Granddaughter but they seemed more surprised than that could cover for, She frowned but hands had raised in the group and Kel picked one out.

"Darien of Golden Lake and Malorie's peak"

She was surprised, the Gaintkiller's son! He was tall, well muscled and broad shouldered with really short straight black hair, black eyes, tan skin, and a ruddy face, he smiled down at her when he came to stand right behind her, as her siblings where to all her other sides. She ignored him watching as her brother got a short, stocky, dark haired, hazel eyed sponsor named Matthew of Anak Eyrie. Then he leaned down and whispered into her ear

"You are going to have to let your siblings go" she nearly jumped when she heard his deep voice but managed to hide it.

"What do you mean?" she whispered back.

"You and your siblings are close, but page training doesn't do nice things to sibling relations."

She blinked and watched as the plump boy named Samuel of Persopolis was chosen by the Prince Jonathan of Conte, a tall boy with blue eyes and dark curly hair and chin of this name sake grandfather but olive skin and titled eyes of a Yamani.

"I don't understand"

"Just watch I will show you."

She couldn't help but to wonder what her meant as she watched Dunia being chosen by the girl Kalisa of Northcliff, who was the daughter of Kel, she didn't seem all that pleased when she choose her for guiding Dunia and even less when Junia was chosen by the boy from earlier; Edlin of Queenscove. At last only the small K'miri boy was left, he was literally shaking with fear. She couldn't help but to feel pity for him.

"That's my little brother." Said Darien just as the little boy stuttered and slipped on his name of Francis of Golden Lake and Malorie's Peak. "He takes after our Mother, but he is afraid of his own shadow, I used to protect him but this year I told him he would have to fight for himself, he nearly pied his breaches, Our Da used to tell him stories of what happened to your Grandma when she was a page."

She couldn't hear the name of the tall girl who went to stand by the boy and put a hand on his shoulder, She was tall and muscular with short dark hair and hazel eyes. She nodded to Kel was seemed relieved but she couldn't help but to notice Kalisa and many of the younger pages staring at her.

"That's Sara – Saralynn—of NorthCliff. The eldest child of Kel and Captain Domitan of Masbolle, her younger sister it Kalisa, they hate each other something fierce, I will tell you over dinner."

The rest of the pages were moving down the hall to the stairs near her room she nodded to her siblings but they stayed with their sponsors. They followed the group of pages the group of pages down to a large mess hall. Darien led her to an empty table and was quickly joined by Jarred of Hollyrose and Derrick of Kennan. Then another girl with plain brown hair and eyes called Jalisa of Runnerspring and two Bazhir cousins who were impossible to tell apart named Aknil ibn Zirhud, and Nibel ibn Carnid all but her and Jarred were third years. Once the introductions were complete they hardly wasted a breath before they started asking her questions.

"So are you really the Lioness's Granddaughter?" asked Jalisa while one of the Bazhir, the one sitting diagonally from her, next to Darien asked "are the other three your siblings?"

"Yeah, my ma was the youngest of Alanna's three children. Me, Newal , Dunia and Junia are the four eldest of my Ma's." She said as she studied her meal, there was a small pile of beans, that were boiled, some ham, with no spices, some fluffy white stuff, that she recognized as potatoes. All in all: the blandest of food Tortall had to offer.

"Didn't your Mother run away to the Copper Isles and help with the rebellion?" Asked the other Bazhir, the one who was introduced as Aknil, she stared at him in surprise, and she didn't think anyone would now that.

"Yeah, it was by accident though, she was caught by slavers who sold her to the family of Queen Dove, she just sort of fell into it after that." She took a bite of potato and waited for the next question.

"Were you born during the Rebellion?" Aknil asked again, she wasn't the only one to stare at him this time.

"No, my Pa wanted to start 'a nest' as it was before the rebellion even started, my Ma had me a year after the rebellion, do you study this kind of thing or are you just guessing?"

"He is really good at history, you ask him anything and he could answer it." Said Derrick through an only partially empty mouth, spraying Jarred with bits of potatoes.

"What's the story behind Kel and her kids, Darien said something about a Domitan of Masbolle, they aren't married?" All the pages laughed expect for Darien who was whispering into his little brother's ear, even with Darien sitting down he was taller than Francis.

"You really don't know?" asked Jalisa through her laughs.

"No I spent the last month holed up at the Pirates Swoop. Alanna doesn't like to gossip." She started to eat her dinner to cover her embarrassment.

"Captain Domitan of Masbolle is in the King's Own, he can't marry unless he leaves, but there wouldn't be anything else for him to do if he does leave the Own. It's really funny actually they have at least two arguments a month when he is here, sometimes we even get to hear them." Said Nibel who was finally able to control his laughter.

"They are the oddest pair you will ever see, they both love each other to death and their kids, everyone who isn't blind can see it, but they always argue. Captain Dom always wants to retire to take care of Kel and their children, But Kel says he would get bored by the end of the month." Said Derrick

"They have two children though" She said, confused.

"Four, actually. The younger two are 8 and 9 both boys, though people think they are both going to try to be Knights as well." Said Jarred, speaking for the first time, everyone stared at him; he only stared down into his empty plate and mumbled almost too quiet to hear. "My Father is close friends with Kel."

Darien finally turned back to the table with a sigh leaving his brother to walk to his table again. He started shoveling his food into his mouth like it was going to disappear. "How is he holding up?" asked Jalisa.

Darien swallowed his mouthful of food before he answered. "As well as can be expected." The other Third years nodded sadly and Nibel clapped him on the back. She watched him take another bite of his food then speak again. "Francis has a difficult time understanding things, he is smart but words and letters are hard for him. HE is good with practical things, and he is great with numbers but he has always been picked on, me and my younger sister Bernice have always had to protect him."

"Do wither of you have the gift?" asked Jalisa.

Jarred shook his head "I do" she said, Jalisa nodded.

"Alright, you will have a class with to help develop your gift with my, Master Salmalin is nice, he does get a little distracted at times but you will learn a lot from him."

"Do you know a Daine Salmalin?" she asked remembering what Kel had said earlier, "I have some Wild Magic and Kel said I have to learn to use that as well."

They others stared at her, "You have wild magic?" asked Jarred while Nibel asked "With what?"

"Birds, namely crows." She said puzzled as to why they were making a big deal of it.

"She will come to get you sometime in the next few days, on her own time. In the mean time, finish your dinner, then we will get your uniform and get you oriented with the palace," Said Darien clearly telling the others, that it wasn't that important. She was privately glad, they weren't supposed to tell anyone that they could turn into crows, it was a secret the crows safeguarded for hundreds of years, She had a feeling that it would be harder to keep that secret then she thought.

Dunia, Junia, Kalisa and Edlin stayed in the page hall for a long time after the other pages left, mostly because Edlin decided to crack a joke that Alanna should be called Alanna the Loiness rather than Alanna the Lioness. It could have been funny, if it hadn't been the very first thing he had said to them. So they were left just standing there avoiding eye contact, and speaking till the moment was far past dead. Eventually she couldn't stand it anymore.

"Right, nice joke ah… Edlin...Umm, I am Dunavai, or Dunia and this is my twin Junila or Junia."

"I am Kalisa I am sorry about my moronic cousin here." Kalisa hit Edlin on the head to emphasize her point. "There is no stopping him when he thinks he has something to say that is even remotely funny."

"I understand, I am sorry for asking but is Kel your Ma?" asked Junia, she felt like hitting her over the head herself.

But Kalisa only laughed "When we are in public, and the term is in session, no but in private and during the summer she is."

"That seems confusing." She said seeing how Kalisa wouldn't take offence

Kalisa shrugged "I am used to it, If we didn't She would be charged with favoritism and the conservatives would never shut up. No like they would ever be quiet, Ma's their favorite person to gossip about."

Junia nodded "I would guess so, a lady knight who was also the training master. Who had two children as pages training as well?"

Both Kalisa and Edlin busted out laughing. Junia looked at her but she only shook her head, she had no idea what was so funny about that either. Eventually she stopped laughing long enough to talk. "My Ma and Pa, they have four children, and they are still not married." They continued to stare at them as they both started laughing again. Kalisa and Edlin only stopped when they couldn't breathe and even then they were holding their ribs as they pointed down the stairs and mentioned the mess hall.

Edlin led the way down to the mess hall, when he was finally under control, The mess hall easier was twice as loud as the dining room was when her family ate but there was at least twice as many people. They got into the line for food and Kalisa and Edlin started asking them about the Copper Isles, where they grew up, she let Junia answer all the questions as she looked around. See saw Aranna who was looking embarrassed while all the people around her were laughing, that was always a sight to see Aranna didn't get embarrassed often. Newal was sitting at a table with four other boys but he was red faced with anger and embarrassment, Newal was practicing his glare on his page sponsor but none of them seemed to notice. At the top table Alanna and Kel were carrying out a conversion both seemed amused over something but Kel had a faint blush in her cheeks. They collected their food and Edlin was leading them over to a table where two boys were sitting, one was tall with really curly red hair and brown eyes and the other who was tall and blocky with black hair and eyes like a K'mir but pale skin, he glowed grey in her Sight from a powerful magical gift and something else she couldn't put a name to.

"Hey guys," Edlin Said to them as he sat down next to the red head. "This is Dunia and Junia. This jolly red head is Thomas of Jesslaw, The black haired one is Jet of Wellan."

"If you ever say jolly again Edlin, I will kick your arse from here to Scanra" Said Thomas threatening Edlin with his knife and glaring at him before turning at them and smiling darkly "I am nice enough normally but if you EVER say the 'j' word I will have to kill you." Thomas sat down heavily and started attacking his food with more force than was necessary Jet looked up, nodded at them, glanced at Thomas who was sitting across from him shook his head and went back to his food.

"You will have to get used them, Thomas has suffered two overly happy parents and two little brothers and a sister. All of which calls everything jolly, His younger brother's name is Jolly and Thomas can't even stand to be in the same room as him. Jet doesn't talk much but when he does listen to him, he is smarter than anyone else I have ever met so you might want to listen to him." Said Kalisa as she sat on the other side of Thomas, She and Junia sat on opposite sides of Jet.

"So do either of you have a Gift" asked Edlin, "Me and Jet both have really powerful gifts"

"No but we both of have the Sight and a little bit of Wild magic with birds." Junia said has she dug into her bland Tortallian food.

"What's the Sight?" Asked Kalisa.

"It's the rarest aspect of the Gift, though just because you have one doesn't mean you have both." She said glad they didn't want to know about her fake 'wildmagic' "Me and Junia's is really powerful, we can detect lies, weapons, magic, god hood or being god touched, what a person intents if the urge is strong enough, whether or not a person is a friend or enemy or important to us , we can see if someone is healthy or not and what is wrong with them if they are sick, zoom in on objects far away, see any magical workings and we can see in the dark as well."They all stared at her and Junia even Jet looked up at them in surprise, she didn't mention that it only worked most of the time, Newal glowed like he should have the sight, but he had no such ability.

"wow, and here we were thinking that Lord Hardhead and King Silence here were cool with their huge magical gifts." Said Kalisa, Jet blushed slightly while Edlin glared at her.

"You need to come up with a better nickname, it's too close to Meathead you sound like you are coping Uncle Dom."

"Deal with it, it's your name unless you want to go by Pedlinan, the name you were given when you were born. I can call you Pedlinan."

"Hardhead is fine." Said Edlin returning to his food and she had to agree, if she thought Dunavai was bad Pedlinan was twice as bad. It was then she became aware of an arm snaking around her attached to a fork that was trying to steal her Blend Tortallian Meat. She stabbed the meat, right next to where the other fork was stabbing at it, with such a force she bent both forks making a horrible noise that made several of the nearby tables look over in surprise. She followed the offending arm up till she was look at an aged cook, who was carrying a large pot and looking down at her in surprise.

"What do you think you are doing?" She asked angrily.

"By orders of Lady Kel, each of you are to eat vegetables at each meal." Said the woman as she tried to take the meat again.

"Then give me the vegetables, it will all tastes the same to me and will all get eaten either way." She twisted her fork so the other woman's came out and stared at the woman before she put two large spoonfuls of green beans on her plate, then on all the other's. She couldn't help to notice that all the others got a lot less than her, the woman glared at her before moving on to the next table.

"what was THAT about?" asked Kalisa, Thomas and Edlin where staring at her but Junia and surprisingly Jet were smiling, even if Jet' s was small before he turned his attention on his beans.

"back at home you had to fight for you food and protect it, otherwise someone would eat it, I thought it was Aranna or Lokian or Myles trying to steal my food." She shrugged then started eating her food not really paying attention to what she was eating

"how many siblings do you have?" Asked Thomas

"Eleven, but two more are due in December." Mouths dropped all around the table, and even Jet stared while his beans fell off his fork. She and Junia just laughed, these four took wild magic in stride but thirteen children stops them faster than the ground does falling objects. This was going to be a fun year.


	7. Chapter 6 The First Day

**September 20, 476 H.E.**

**37****Th ****year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen **

**Page Wing of the Royal Palace**

Aranna was up the next morning before Dawn, as always, the morning. She immediately rolled out of bed and nearly jumped with excitement for the training which would start hours later. Once she calmed down enough to not to scream and jump, Aranna started her daily routine; washing her hands and face, brushing her teeth and hair than using the privy. Wertha was up when she came back out, making her bed, laying clothes out for the day; practice clothes for the morning, page uniform which Wertha had tailored to fit more like a woman's tunic and hose than a man's for the rest of the day. Her old Nurse maid was glaring at the world through jaw cracking yawns. They nodded to each other but didn't speak, Wertha absolutely hated mornings, she spent most of the night awake instead, She had more than once gotten in trouble for thing in the morning which she wouldn't have in the afternoon, and that wasn't just when she was a child either. So she learned not to try anything in the mornings until Wertha stopped glaring.

Wertha Went back to the closet to get a little more sleep shortly after while Aranna was changing into practice clothes. She settled down to write letters home; Grandma, she would call her this now that Gran couldn't do anything, had said that she wouldn't have much time to write later. She had finished a letter to her parents, one to each Lokian and Myles and was just finishing a letter to all the younger children when there was a knock at her door, it was really loud, she heard Wertha Grunt and roll over as Aranna got up to open the door.

Saralynn of NorthCliff was standing outside, also in practice clothes and seemed surprised to see Aranna standing in the doorway, dressed and awake. Saralynn got over her surprise quickly than it was Aranna's turn to be surprised that the look that replaced surprise on the other girl's face was anger.

"M-The lady Kel want everyone down in the inside training room, follow me I will lead you there."

Aranna blinked in surprise as Saralynn walked away, she hurried after the other girl, slightly angry that this girl was acting so superior, for all that Saralynn was one year older than her and a fourth year page besides. Did it bug her that she was two years older than every page in her year, when she could have been a third year, along with the fact that she was in the same year as three of her younger siblings? A bit like asking if the sky was blue and right now that blue was so bright she felt like hitting Saralynn with a very sharp and pointy metal stick.

As Saralynn led her down to the training room she looked around doing her best to memorize the route. Eventually they reached the indoor training room. It was a large room almost the same size as the mess hall, with stone flours and white wash walls. Around the room were small practice rings that were empty now but had clearly seem a lot of use. The walls were lined with all sorts of weapons hanging in racks and a door at each end of the room was open showing even more weapons. There was a group of all the female pages surrounding Kel in the corner of the room, Saralynn left her without ceremony and pushed her way to join a group of her friends, she glared at the other girl before turning her attention to the rest of the people and searching for anybody she knew and out of the twenty people she could guess at only half. She saw Dunia and Junia standing by a sleepy looking Kalisa and surprisingly a lone boy, Tall and blocky with dark hair and eyes. She spotted Jalisa leaning against a wall with her eyes closed apparently asleep. Aranna made her way over to the other girl who was indeed asleep and murmuring quietly about something she couldn't quite hear. She poked the other girl carefully ready to jump away if she got angry.

"S'whoad a you?" Mumbled Jalisa bleary eyed before fixing on her. "Oh it's you"

"Yep, good morning." She replied cheerfully.

Jalisa glared at her "you're a morning person, I HATE morning people."

It sort of went with being a crow but she didn't say so "Too bad, you are going to have to deal with it. Until than every morning I am going to come an-"

"Alright, be quiet everybody, sooner we finish this sooner we can get to the part where you get to only pretend to listen to m, know you have to pay attention. Kel looked pointedly in their direction "first off we have four new female pages joining us this year, Aranna Dunavai and Junila of Pirate's Swoop and Blysse of Cavall they are filling in the gaps for the five female Squires that have left this year as well as the three pages who have not returned this year."

Kel paused looking over the group "for those new girls we have this year and those returning from last year and of course Jet of Wellan who we have not yet gotten rid of." The boy blushed but the rest of them laughed, even Kel who was normally pretty unexpressive, smiled. "This is a reminder that I expect more from you than any other page. As Lady Knights you have a standard to uphold. There may be a girl who puts out the same effort as the boys but the boy will become a knight where the girl will not. I expect you all to work, there will be no slacking you all will be the tops of all of your classes or you will be gone." It had gone dead silent as Kel spoke; somehow she got the feeling that this was not a normal beginning of the year speech.

"Second; last year there was untoward behavior documented from some of the girls. I had to issue supplies to enable girls to continue both Squire and Page Training. There were certain nobles who got wind of this and even not as we speak they are trying to remove all female pages, squires, knights and Training masters" there were a few whispers but they died out from the hard look on Kel's face, Aranna felt like her eyes were about to pop out of their sockets, she hoped Kel wasn't talking about what she thought she was talking about she was 12 and she had never even THOUGHT about that and here was Kel talking about having pages doing THAT and facing repercussions! "This year if you do engage in activities that result in a child, I will not issue the herbs to prevent the child from coming nor, if I have my way, will any person in the palace or the city issue the herbs. To say that I would be disappointed if something of the nature should happen would be an understatement "

All of the girls were red faced including her; even Jet looked as if he would like to sink into the ground. Kel reached down and grabbed a bow putting it on the table besides her "inside this box is 50 anti- pregnancy charms. I expect everyone who does not already have one to pick one up today. If you have one or later when you plan to use one, I would recommend you check the charm regularly to check if the magic is intact and for chips and cracks, all of which could result in the charm not working." Kel was smiling slightly blushing faintly as she looked at her red faced daughters, apparently the fact they were products of a broken charm did make them very excited, and she had to agree. Kel clapped her hands together "In the mean time, the true purpose. I have new exercises for you all, It think they—"

Kel spent the next Two and a half hours showing them exercises she would show the others, ways to strengthen all parts of the body some she didn't even know could be strengthened, then stretches for all parts of the body she said would prevent a lot of injuries, All the while explaining that it was important for them to work harder because certain parts of females made it more difficult to get in shape, and stay in shape. After that Kel showed them different forms of running that could increase endurance, make them quicker on their feet and later make it easier to wear heavy armor. Finally she spent the last 45 minutes telling them about weighted weapons and where to find them, ways to add more weight to weighted weapons, ways to add more weight to their bodies, to symbolize fatigue and armor by using cloth bands that were filled with lead, and also using a leather harness around their shoulders. By the time they finished she began wondering if Page training would be as complex as these Bi-Weekly meeting as she and many of the other page girls collected charms and headed to Breakfast.

Breakfast was nearly silent, most of the pages had been asleep not too long ago and the others were too tired from Kel's private training to want to talk. After Breakfast Aranna followed the others outside where Kel worked them with Staves, she was partnered wit Blysse at first but after ten minutes of Blysse hitting her fingers she found herself partnered against Calum of WinterBrook a 3rd year page who sneered and but at least twice the amount of force necessary behind his hits but was still quick enough to be evenly matched against her. Junia was paired with Darien but Dunia was paired with Kalisa, though watching them out of the corner of her eye she almost thought they were born with a staff in their hands. Newal stayed with Francis though, Staff not being Newal's strong suit, though Francis looked as if he might drop his weapon she didn't think even Newal was that bad

After an hour they moved to the axe, or mace for her for an hour, all of them did pretty well with that. Newt they worked on Hand to Hand combat with the Three Shang Eagle, Tiger and Snake, Working on falling which was easy for her and her siblings but difficult to the others, besides Samuel with the Snake while that others practiced harder moves. After that the first years moved on to daggers, still with the Snake, the twins or course were set on their own not long after followed shortly by she and Newal, they all had worked on daggers when they were younger and had gotten good at them though the twins were the best. The other four were still struggling though, especially Blysse and Francis, she began to wonder if the tow had made a mistake on training to become pages, but didn't comment. After an Hour of daggers they were hurried to the stables to saddle and mount their horses she was glad Grandma had supplied horses for all of them. Blysse and been supplied by her family and so had Francis but both Jarred and Samuel got stuck with mounts that had both seen better days. They rode around the pasture letting the Lady Kel Critique them and the rest of the pages on their riding, It was a relief, she was already felling the results of the day's activities, not as hard as some of them, Blysse actually fell asleep on her horse. Other than that Kel seemed pleased with the way they rode and gave them an approving nod before sending them off to lunch.

All the Female pages had to run back to the palace for their baths, groaning and moaning all the way, though Kel led them. When she got to her room, opening the door like Wertha had showed her turning it left whispering her name then entering. Wertha wasn't in but there was a bath just the right temperature in the privy. She washed quickly well aware of the fact her stomach was growling, dressed in the page uniform from her bed and was down stairs with her food before most people were even dressed, which was how she saw Darien and Saralynn arguing, though she couldn't hear the words.

Darien grabbed Saralynn as she tried to enter the mess and argued for a bit before Darien loosened his grip and she tried to leave again. Darien jumped and grabbed her arm, though this time she hit him and tried to throw him off but Darien let her go before she could. IT was times like this Aranna wished she learned how to read lips, maybe when she saw Ma again, or Pop Pop. Saralynn walked into the mess hall grabbed her food, almost ran to her table and began eating her food like it was going to run away. Darien followed at a much slower pace grabbing his food, sitting down across from Aranna and eating with his head in the clouds, not noticing that he was eating jam like potatoes and his sweet roll with green beans and potatoes as jam. She watched him for a while before making a decision.

"What was that about?" he shrugged his shoulders "anything I can do to help" his head snapped up but he shook his head no. She shrugged as her returned to his food.

Jalisa showed up not long after words and they started talking about the day so far. Aknil and Nibel showed up not long after, followed closely by Derrik, the conversion turned to the leather harnesses all the older pages wore, even Darien joined in, Lunch was almost over when a red-faced Jarred showed up.

"Where have you been?" Asked Nibel, he had his left ear pierced, when Jarred sat down on her and Jalisa's side of the table.

"I got lost" whispered jarred into his food, Aranna burst out laughing, the other not far behind.

After Lunch that headed to History which was taught by Nikolas of Norwood a middle aged scholar who was almost jumping up and down with excitement as he told them about the history of Tortall which managed to rub off on at least some of the pages, he was a good teacher, though he did decide to give them a thousand word essay on the history of Tortall to complete in their free time for tomorrow. After an hour they moved on to reading and writing which was thought by an old Mithran Priest. Almost immediately she and all the other first year pages were reprimanded for sloppy hand writing and in the case of Francis hardly being able to write at all, they all were assigned to write out the alphabet multiple times in class, read a chapter in a book about grammar when one of the older pages, she didn't know him said "This is dumb, we don't need no learning, we gonna be Knights not Scholars."

By far the worst class of the day was etiquette, a full hours of listening to Master OakBridge. He was old, nearly deaf, slightly senile and he was in charge of teaching them all manners of court ceremonies including dancing, serving, bowing, and ways of addressing anyone she would ever meet, however unlikely. For a girl that meant learning both male and female parts, she and her siblings already knew those required from the copper Isles, but they soon learned that the Tortallian counterparts were a lot harder and Master Oakbridge made them bow over and over until Aranna thought her already sore legs would fall off.

There was a class on chivalry next where they listened to a conservative Knight Timothy of Nenan talk about the way Knight should act that were liberally seasoned with statements that females shouldn't be knights, In fact Sir Timothy assigned them two chapters in a book, to be read before Wednesdays next class, that starred female knights, and their down fall. After Chivalry the pages split up, the gifted ones to a class to learn how to control it, and the non gifted ones to learn of the non-practical uses. Only she and Francis had the gift in their year but there were a dozen or so older pages with the gift. The class was taught by Numair Salmalin who was almost as old as Grandma but did not really so it, he was strict but kind, even when Francis who was having some troubles was found to have had the battle magic gift and almost set himself on fire when they learned mediation. Though Numair was relieved when she told him that she had an even battle/healing gift and had already some level of control over both. She was happy though that that she was only told to meditate in the mornings and evenings before and after bed. She was running out of 'Free Time' the hour after dinner but before lights out Jalisa had told her, and she was already sore and tried from the morning.

The last class of the day, for Monday, was a healing class taught by Sir Neal of Queenscove or by Duke Baird of Queenscove when Sir Neal wasn't available. This class was even smaller, as people who didn't have the Healing Gift were with the Non-gifted students learning medicine. They spent the class learning simple symbols that could be used to make protective charms and various herbs; what they looked like, where to find them and their purpose. She was glad Edlin was there because Sir Neal would always get off on tangents and tell them where the herb was discovered and all the mythical properties he could remember, with Edlin there he could tell his father to be quiet, which worked for them. Though they did get assigned multiple chapters in books about herbs and symbols, to be read for the next day.

When they finally got to dinner at seven, most of the pages had barely enough energy to get their food and sit down, and she knew her only saving grace was the fact she trained for a bit with Grandma, and the crow thing, and even that wasn't much.

"so what did you two think of your first day?" Darien asked them half way through dinner, She and Jarred shared a look.

"Hard, harder than I expected, I don't think even the worst tales my grandmother could spin are this bad." She answered; she got a few blank looks from that. It was one thing to know Alanna the Lioness was a grandmother, or indeed a mother, but quite another to hear her being call that.

Darien recovered first with a cough, "Yes, Our lady Kel received some of the worst gossip and insults when she became Training Master, eight years ago. Everything came out when it was announced, everything from her family history, her childhood, while she was a knight, all the mistakes she ever made, or rumored to have made. All for her friends and family were critically examined for the tiniest flaw."

Jalisa waved him off and he went back to his dinner as she took up narrative. "once she became training master it got worse, she had only changed a few things so she was accused of neglecting her duties, favoring pages, even had her sleeping with the male pages. So she met with Lord Raoul" she gestured at Darien to indicate that it was his father, "lord Wyldon of Cavall, The Lioness, The king and all the Shang that were there at the time and came up with this plan. In the old days before she became training master they only trained 5 days a week they go time off between classes, and at weekends. Now we get up earlier, later halfway through the first year she starts weighting all the weapons. Teachers are told exactly what to teach us. We train six days a week, then even on Sundays we learn about immortals, test weapons, get evaluated, we always go out and train in the worst weather. All the teachers meet up and discuss us and if you are not up to standard you go on a probation, a month to get up to standard or you are out"

Darien took up narration when she stopped, "they called it plan torture when they were planning it out, now even the conservatives call it that. At midwinter and at the end of term we get tested and after that we go on a three week tour. Getting fighting experience and testing our meddle. Then we do a tournament all pages and squires are required to participate. And I hear plans that new knights, up to 5 years after being Knighted then every five years after that are required to go in for a test, if they are in active duty of course" Aranna snorted at that but Darien only shrugged "out of shape Knights do no good."

After that the turned to less shocking subjects, like families namely hers, of course they didn't anticipate her many siblings, so she had to go in t o detail about her family, though she left out the 'We are part crow', 'my mother and grandfather are spies' and the 'our father is dying' parts. They parted ways about half way through the appointed dinner hour and returned to their rooms, the others calling after her that it would be better to finish the work tonight, and stay up past lights out, then to deal with punishment work. Wertha wasn't back yet so there were no distractions to prevent her from being productive, not always a good thing.

Aranna started with the Tortallian Kings essay first writing down large chunks then doing some of the exercises she had learned early in the morning than writing down some more. When she finished that she practiced her hand writing through her yawns and even though she knew she should go to bed she started reading what Sir Neal assigned her as she stretched. After holding a stretch for almost a minute and rereading the same page four times through and still not understanding it, she decided t0o stop fighting and sleep, she could do the rest of the work in the morning, AFTER she meditated of course so she sat on her bed against the wall and was asleep after 3 minutes of 'mediation'.


	8. Chapter 7 Learning Crow

**September 21 -27, 476 H.E.**

**Page Wing of the Royal Palace**

Newal discovered almost immediately that Matthew of Anak Eyrie and his friends David of Stone Mountain, a tall, pale boy with dark eyes and hair, Sean of Macayhill, a short, skinny, boy with tanned skin and olive colored eyes and Eric of Masbolle, a tall muscular third year with dark curly hair and green eyes, liked women and in fact after greeting him, telling him about page training, the lady kel, a bit about their families and hearing about his, they started telling him all about the 19 female pages and 14 female squires; his three sisters. The very first day they made sure to ask if he had known had 'goddess beautiful' and 'curvy' Aranna was and how she 'looked like an angel with red hair' that morning during staff practice. In fact Aranna, Dunia ( though not Junia who was 'too feirce' though he had difficulties separating them apart), Saralynn and Kalisa of NorthCliff and Blysse of Cavall were their favorites out of the pages and the fact that Aranna and Dunia were his sisters made no difference, nor did Eric, whose grandfather, on his father's side was the much older half-brother of Captain Domitan of Masbolle, (they had different mothers) who had fathered all of Kel's children, that was almost a joke with them. So for Eric there were no problems discussing both Northwood girls at length. If he wasn't so tried from practicing late in to the night and early in the morning with his weapons, or an kind of exercise he had gleamed from any person he could, and if there was not such stick punishments for fighting outside of the practice courts, He would have hit them all. Luckily they figured out that he truly hated his sisters being talk about like bed-slaves they moved on and started talking about some of the other page girls and the serving women, which they pointed out to him as they spoke.

Page Training was different from what he expected; they spent more time in books rather than learning weapons. Knights don't need to know what some old dead king did, or have pretty hand writing, know a hundred different ways to bow, learn ways to identify basic gifts and their effects or even a million different ways to use herbs to cure an infection or the common cold. If you die in the first battle there would be no point to learn any of those things. He didn't mention this to anyone, he had seen the other's faces as they were learning, only he and Caleb of Seentale thought it was a waste of time but then Caleb was a bit like Francis only worse, and could not spell his own name to save his life and very likely had been dropped on his head when he was born where Francis was just slow, Newal also liked Francis where as he hated Caleb. Francis had a good sense of humor and was good with his weapons for all that he was a little clumsy.

On the second day of page training, He woke up to the strangest dream he had ever had. HE had been laying down in the mud staring up to the grey sky, rain was falling thickly. People and horses were running, everything so loud it was silent, so painful it was numb, Aranna's face over head, tears in her hazel eyes, mud and blood splattering her reddish gold hair and her normally honey brown skin. His sister had been saying something he couldn't hear, and then he said something which made Aranna, cry more before the dream would fade away. Most of the dream had made no sense, partly because Aranna didn't cry, ever, he was beginning to think she didn't have tear ducts. It was not exactly the best start to a day but he had had worse since coming to Tortall that he didn't even want to think about. He finished the work he teachers had assigned and brought out his old and battered practice sword and went through all of the positions until he was covered in sweat. He stopped only once to let Lars, the serving man who had been assigned to him, come into to clean his room. He stopped when the bell rang six times and got ready for the day and headed down to the mess hall for breakfast, which like the previous day was almost completely silent.

When he headed off to morning practice he again was partnered with Francis all morning but he was noticeably better than he was the day before, and not so pale. However instead of the mace or axe they took turns blocking with shields and using sticks to get around them, It was painful because for all that Francis looked like he shouldn't even be able to lift a weapon he was strong, he could feel the bruises as he carried out the day. Instead of hand to hand combat they worked on archery and Kel had to split her time between Francis and Blysse who were struggling to even string the weapon. When they moved on to the part of the day they would work on daggers, Kel mentioned that next week they would move on to swords as daggers were a waste of time for knights, and at the horse riding time they would begin jousting the next day as well.

Afternoon classes were just as boring, they went to a math class instead of chivalry where a quiet priest checked all of their basic skills were up to par before instructing them on harder skills such as 'algebra'. By the end of the day he had to rewrite his essay on tortallian kings, write another on the founding of government, read and summarize three poems, read another chapter in the grammar book, practice his bowing, read a long chapter on the history of the gift and read a book on herbs. He was glad he had finished his work and only had to rewrite his essay, it was really messy, and people who didn't were assigned at least twice the amount of work.

People started looking at him and his sisters differently by the end of the week, they were all good at most of the weapons though he loved the mace, and found the staff difficult and Aranna despised archery. They were naturally smart and found most subjects easy, they never got punishment work and always seemed to be on top of what they were doing. Sure Francis started training almost exclusively with the third and fourth years by Thursday but he struggled in most of his book classes. Newal was privately glad, if his goal was to beat Alanna, Raoul the Gaintkiller or the lady Kel, the best place to start was page training, if you stood out people take notice besides it took no work to be naturally good at everything he did.

On Sundays breakfast started later at seven and the second half of the breakfast hour was spent listening to praise to Mithros the god of war and law and the Goddess. Though Sunday was the official day off for them they still had serial things they were required to do, however it was only a four hours of required time, an inspection on all of their gear, being tested with weapons and a class on the History of Immortals, first thing after breakfast taught by Numair Salmalin and Daine, his wife. They made it interesting, he actually liked the class as it was practical, they would fight immortals as knights. After that almost all of the other pages left for the three hour break before lunch, space that was to be filled first by punishment work then class work then, if you had permission, city leave, a chance to get out of the palace which is what he was planning on doing before he was called to stay behind with Aranna, Dunia and Junia though he heard their friends call them something different; Ari, Dunie and Junie but he didn't mind, he had spent all his life growing up with them and though this was the first time in a week he was alone with them he felt like a stranger. A week of talking about them as nothing more than a pretty face made them seem different in his mind but he noticed that the others seemed awkward as well. Numair had left with the other pages and Daine was studying them before she spoke.

"Alanna gave me the letter from your parents explaining about your father and how all of your siblings are half crow, including you." He stared at him for a moment before remembering that Daine was the wildmage and was not talking about Da's old age, and though they were half crow it could be considered wildmagic, and it was their cover as well. "I understand that you all are able to fly and speak as a crow and have been able to do such from a young age, but I would like to test you and if you don't mind Numair would like to as well." She smiled slightly "Nothing painful of course and I thought you might like a chance to fly as well, I know you don't have a lot of time to fly during the week. So while we are waiting for Numiar, is there anything being part crow changes, other than being able to change form?"

Almost on instinct they turned to Aranna for her to speak, which she did almost without their encouragement "Yes, we are more muscular, we never get too badly out of shape, we are always up before the sun at three. We do have a habit of trying to nest in the spring; all of us are attracted to shiny things. We like heights and the wind. As a crow our feathers are different, both in color and the fact that when you come in contact with them you can use the Sight of the crow who dropped it, or the girt depending. Later, in late teens, there is no daught that each of his will have to overcome a spring fever. Our Mother had serial multiple pregnancies out of eight pregnancies, four were multiples" Aranna looked up at the ceiling trying to remember if she forgot anything, "Ah, when we are born we are born in a sack, like a chicken egg when you remove the hard shell there is a thin membrane, we all spoke crow before any human language. We don't know yet but we may experience a shortened life span, both we all grow up normally."

"Are you affected by winter's shortening at all, any thoughts of migration?" Daine asked, as if Aranna's little report was something of the everyday.

"No, if you meant the time we woke, it's always three. I like the cold actually, so far there is no one who hates the cold more than could be accounted for. Though when we were younger we always insisted to sleep in almost a nest though the winter,"

"You said your feathers have a residue of your Sight or Gift, if you possess it, how long does the residue last?" Newal blinked, he had not heard Numair return.

"we don't know we have never tested it, we are the only know bird children alive, and the only ones to ever have the Gift as prevalent as it is." Aranna answered, her voice only shaking slightly from surprise.

"You said you go into a spring fever, do you get strong urges to build actual nests, get overly protective, are you only able to reproduce in the spring or—"

"Numair!" Daine interrupted him and he seemed to notice that everyone, even Daine, was red faced and that Newal had stepped in between him and his sisters since they had taken a step back. The two adults had a small conversion with their eyes, something only married couples seemed to be able to do. Numair looked slightly put out, he almost felt bad for him. It was then he realized where he was standing and he shifted back in to his place to the right of Aranna and the left of the twins, ignoring his siblings eyes fixed on him and their questions, he was not sure why he did that, he did not think Numair and Daine were bent on their destruction, they were almost family.

"Alright" said Daine, her and Numair seemed to have come to a conclusion. "Newal, Numair wants to document the change from human to crow, would you mind showing him?" He nodded and when Numair motioned him out of the room up serial flights of stairs and to a suite of rooms with 'Numair and Daine Salmalin' on the door.

"I'm sorry about the… um..Getting away from myself " Numair said awkwardly

He shrugged "no worries, I don't know why I got so protective."

Numair nodded. "My son, RIkash has always been over protective of my daughter, Sarralyn"

They fell in to another less then comfortable silence "Um, Daine mentioned that you want to see the change, umm, how do you want to go about it."

"Well" Numair rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, trying to say something and slowly turning red. "Well first I want to know how you go about the change, then I want to watch the change, probley several times, so I can see the difference, if there is any between you and Daine changing. I would also like to study your muscular structure, both as a human and as a crow."

Newal nodded "The change for me, is almost as natural as breathing. I just sort og focus on being a crow; wings and feathers, the wind. It's kind of like thinking about numbers rather than letters, or Common instead of Raka. Most of the time I focus on one of my feathers instead" HE pulled one out of his pocket and handing to Numair for him to see. Pleased when he heard a gasp of surprise when he heard a gasp of surprise; he always thought his feathers were the most stunning of all of his siblings' feathers. His feathers were black of course like all crow feathers but like a diamond his sparkled and shone with a purple light in the even slightly dim light of the study. Numair was staring at his feather as a black cloud engulfed it. Newal stiffened as he felt it swirling around his body, Numiar voice seemed to be screaming in his ears so quick the sentences barely completed themselves before beginning again. Numair thoughts collided with his own with a ferocity that had his head want to explode. His stomach churned dangerously. "Stop" he choked " Numair stop."

Numair looked up at him and his thoughts speed up, ringing in his ears and he could barely hear the question Numair asked him "You can feel my gift?"

"Stop please, I can hear you, I will do anything just stop" He pleaded.

Numiar stared at him for what seemed like an eternity and didn't noticed that the cloud of his gift was swirling mush quicker around the feather. Newal closed his eyes and hunched over trying to keep his breakfast if at all possible. Suddenly the swirling stopped, and the ringing subsided. Numair patted his back as he swallowed several times to be sure his food would stay where it belonged.

"I am sorry, I did not realize… I am sorry, I just get distracted sometimes, you are the most interesting thing I have had to study in a long time." Numair kept rumbling about how sorry he was.

Finally when he got his stomach under control he spoke. "It's fine, no one's ever tried to test my feathers like that before."

"they are like nothing I have ever seen before, a combination of griffin feathers and dragon scale almost. It's like there is a powerful magic in them and a gift, but not quite. It almost reminds me of when Daine was pregnant with Rikash, she was almost bursting with the gift but she could not use it, Her magic and Rikash's gift were mixed so thoroughly that you could not tell where one began and the other ended"

Newal stared at him for a bit before coming to a decision, if Numair was this excited to learn more about being part crow, the least he could do would be to work it he his favor. " I would be willing to spent two hours every Sunday being tested by you, on two conditions."

Numair smiled widely " really and what would those be?"

"One, don't ever do that again, I felt like I was going to die, and next time I will puke."

Numair's smile turned into a grin " I can do that, what's the next condition."

"You have to feed me, no offence but you Tortallians make the blandest food I have ever tasted. You think a little salt and pepper or a little sugar make the food good. Right now I could kill for fish so spicy I could breathe fire, Rice mixed with so many roots and fruits that there is no rice, or meat so heavily fried that it cracks teeth. " Numair was almost doubled over laughing by the time he finish describing foods which was saying something for the 6' 5 man.

"Deal, every Sunday I will feed you some 'non-bland Tortallian Food' Newal, you remind me of your mother, and Alanna as well."

Newal frowned "why? Do they both hate bland food, Ma avoids all the good foods like the plague, and I can't imagine Alanna jumping for spicy foods. Besides I don't really think that have anything in common, and that I would share that some feature in common."

Numair laughed again "No, they don't have much in common, but they do have three things, the first two they share with you, they are both stubborn, and they both know exactly what they want."

Newal grinned. "What's the third thing they have in common?"

Numair's grin matched his own "A genuine hatred of the cold. That was the one thing they would always agree on. The rest of the time they would argue, mostly about what Aly would do with her life" Numiar smiled at a fond memory. "It's funny Alanna is almost considered the goddess of wayward daughters, had a wayward daughter whom she could not get along with. Aly had all the boys in court strung along before she left for the Copper Isles."

He stared at Numair, Ma, his Ma, had someone before Da, many someone's? Try as he might he could not imagine it, not that he really wanted to. "I highly daught Ma ever did that."

Numair surfaced from his memories "When I first met Alanna, even later, Aly, when she was growing up, If you would have told me in a few years they would be, well you can't really say settled, but having children. I and a large portion of court, especially with Alanna, would have laughed you out of the country. Newal, could you strip down to your loin cloth, I would like to examine your muscles."

Newal nodded and obliged, not really at all uncomfortable. Though Numair was nothing like Da, or anyone of the Crow Men of even Granda, but he could not help but to feel comfortable with Numair, he was almost like a bird. Though he knew in the far reaches of his mind, that if he had the Magical Gift, he would train to beat Numair as well.

As he undressed he continued with the conversation "Yeah, Alanna doesn't seem like she would be a very motherly person, though I can't imagine ma without her being pregnant or with at least one child on her hip."

"Well, with 11, soon to be 13 children, what can you expect" Newal nodded thoughtfully and watched Numair as he pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. "As for Alanna, if it wasn't for George, I do not believe she would have had children as willingly. As it was, I don't think she would have had children as soon as she did on purpose."

Newal blinked, as much as he hated to image granda and Alanna having children on accident, he knew where babies came from thank you very much, in spite of himself he was curious. "She didn't plan on have my Ma and Uncle Alan?" He asked Numair as he began studying the muscles in his arm.

Numair laughed again, Newal noticed for the first time that he seemed to be a very happy man; for all that he was as old as his grandparents married to someone almost 15 years his junior. "No Alan and Aly are younger than Thom by two years. They were planned but Thom wasn't. I don't know the particulars, but I believe that Alanna's charm stopped working, ran out of magic, it made been made at least 15 years before that apparently. I had been there when she found out. There was Jon, Thayet, Buri, Raoul, George and myself, we heard yelling down the hall, Alanna came running in, broke George's nose before we even knew what had happened and had to be restrained from running him through with her sword. Needless to say she wasn't very happy about it." Newal grinned he could almost imagine that happening. Alanna was pretty fierce, Numiar was studying his shoulders now but he could hear the soft chuckling coming from behind him. "George's nose got broken many times by Alanna, It almost became a ritual. Your muscles are unbalanced by the way; you should try to fight more with your left arm more. It is a mark of a good swordsman that their shoulders are balanced."

Newal blinked at the sudden change of topic but recovered quickly. "I know, I started training with the left side yesterday morning. How many times did Alanna break Granda's nose?"

Numair was now checking farther down his back and seemed distracted but he laughed none the less."I am not sure, there used to be a running tally, I think the number was somewhere in the double digits. I think Alanna broke his nose because she was afraid, and didn't know how to address her fear other than to be angry."

"His nose didn't look like it got broken 10 times, my ma broke he own nose once and it has a slight bump in it."

"No Duke Baird fixed his nose most of the time, but George always just laughed it off. Your Grandparents are a truly odd pair."

He thought on them for a minute, they really were, he had never met another person like them " I'd say, but they are well matched I don't think my parents are half as happy as George and Alanna are, and my parents still stare at each other all goggle eyed when they think we can't see it." Numair who was done checking him and now writing on the paper looked up and smiled "it's interesting to hear of them doing such mundane things such as raising children. To hear of Alanna being afraid after everything she has done seemingly without fear. In all of the stories of Alanna the Lioness, The Lady Kel, Lord Raoul the Gaintkiller, even those you and Diane, they all focus on your courage and never once mention a drop of fear. I believe it's more interesting to hear of your faults then to hear about your strengths."

Numair gave him a funny look "Our adventures are once in a life time things and I am sure that fear holds a great part of many adventures, if not all because I know that any story you have heard of me I had been ruled by fear. In fact I know that some of the things we have done are almost exactly like or adventures. Alanna I know has hesitated to kill, or to fight, or be in the cold. Raoul has run away from fights with lesser immortals, even his own wife, and don't get me started on his fear of his great aunts. Diane and I have on occasion been scared of an animal, even of our own Daughter, though it was a short lived thing. Kel who I know has been joked about being 'mother' to a lot of her year mates was dead terrified when she became a mother. She even lost Saralynn once, her daughter, she was with Dom if I recall correctly, but Kel didn't know that, she was almost in tears trying to find her."

Newal stared for almost a full minute. The Lady Kel, their own Lady Lump, once lost _her daughter_. "I don't believe it."

Numair smiled. "You don't have to believe me. Parenthood brings out a side of a person, most people wouldn't have even known they possessed."

"You are a parent." It was a statement, Sarralyn Salmalin was one of the people his friends liked to talk about but at the moment she and her brother were by all reports either in the City of the Gods, or the University of Carthak.

Numair grinned widely. "Yes Sarralyn is almost 16, off with the riders causing her commanders troubles with animals. Rakash, who is a year older than Aranna is in Carthak learning to control his gift, those two I know now the part of me that has been missing for most of my life, they thought me more patience then I ever knew I had." Numair got a strange look on his face. "Now it's back to me The Magelet and Kitten."

"Kitten?"

"Kitten- Skysong the Dragonet" Numair didn't look up from his notes this time. "We have been raising her for almost 30 years now."

Newal fell silent letting Numair take his notes as he twiddled his fingers. It was only then that he remembered, they had not told Numiar everything. "Numair, did you ever look at my fingers?" He held up his right hand as Numair looked up and fixed his gaze on his hand. His fingers were long, lean and dark; his palm was white with interesting wrinkles of color in the lines. But Numair was focused on his last two fingers, both out which had an extra joint of length on it, making his ring finger the longest and pointer finger the shortest.

Numair stood and grabbed his hand studying it intently and moving the joints to check the range of motion "Do any of your other siblings have this?"

"All of them" he said brightly.

"Fascinating and it does not inhibit you in any way?"

"Do your short and stubby fingers trouble you at all?" He shot back in a not so rare moment of sarcastic humor. Numair held up his own digits, which were as long and thin as the rest of him. They stared at them a long moment before bursting out laughing.

Numair clapped him on the shoulder "Alright Newal, now down to business, could you change back and forth for me?"

Newal ended up changing back and forth at least a dozen times, changing both as fast as he could and as slow as he could. He hardly noticed that he spent quite a lot of time in front of the other man wearing nothing but his skin. He left two dozen feathers for Numair's purposes. After the last time he changed back to crow, Numair sent him out to fly with his sisters and several dozen other local crows that had joined them as well as Daine, who flew as a crow as well. As always being a crow was the greatest feeling in the world nothing could possibly compare. The wind buffeting him the, powerful strokes of his wings, the quickened beat of his heart, it him it was pure adrenalin, impossible to describe but the only drug he would ever need. All of the worries he had ever had were left far behind had even the pending death of his Father seemed a far off evil rather than the storm cloud that had been raining over him for almost a year.


	9. Chapter 8 Fighting

**Sunday October 24, 476 H.E.**

**Page Wing of the Royal Palace**

As the second month of page training drew to a close Aranna or Ari as she was now called, found herself separating herself from her friends and heading to the indoor training room alone. A stressful 3 weeks with very little sleep had done a lot to put a damper on her mood. It had been raining, she hadn't flown in two weeks, she hadn't slept for more than two hours a night for almost the entire month, Wertha was never around, the letters she had been expecting from her family had not come yet, and all the other pages had started ignoring her. Not to mention that the equipment she had worked so hard to polish and clean had suddenly gotten dirty, Night Shine had suddenly gotten pregnant and no one could tell her how; she now had to ride a palace mount for eight and a half months while she waited for night shine to birth. The week long camping trip in the rain had not exactly been fun either, but the Lady Kel, ever wise as she is, had decided that all nights need to know how to camp alone in the wood s and she ended up spending 6 and a half days with Sabella of Lorhall a 4th year, Damien of Beachley a 3rd year, and Conward of Whitedell a 2nd year something she now associated with the silent realms.

Not that she was about to give up, oh no that would not happen, she just felt like stabbing someone with something long shiny, sharp and metal. So she changed into practice gear grabbed Copper light and headed down to the deserted training room. She had spent quite a lot of time in this room and almost considered it home, but not really, white wash can get really annoying. She went through every pattern dance she knew, making up some of her own, adding as many weights as she could. Block, step, spin, slash, stab, spin then jump losing herself in to thoughtlessness, She finish her pattern dance with a slash that would behead a kneeling man to the sound of clapping. She looked up and rested the tip of her sword on the ground as she was too tired to lift it. Five of the senior pages; a tall, muscular blonde: Jehan of Faywald, a robust, red head: Bruno of Varre, a wiry k'miri: Tiadbold of Beachley, a slight dark haired boy; Normand of Aldwinter and a blocky Bazhir she didn't know. She eyed them wearily, fully aware of Darien and Jalisa's warning about meeting a large group of pages in the training room alone.

"Hey… Aranna of Pirates' Swoop right? My name is Tiadbold… of Beachley." Tiadbold smiled widely as she nodded his delicate features brightening as he walked her way, closely followed by the rest of the group. "You were in my younger brother's survival group last week, do you remember?"

Tiadbold stopped in front of her and held out his hand, she stared at it for a bit. Fully remembering the past week, all of the people in her group had hated her, and no matter how little sleep she got, she was fully aware that her horse could have gotten taken, and that Damien had the only stallion out of any of the pages nearby. Ari reached for Tiadbold's hand as the others in the group circled behind her, knowing exactly what was going to happen.

Tiadbold grabbed her hand before it reached the distance, his smile turning into an angry snarl before reaching out and punching her across the face. Ari dropped her sword from the impact and used it to try to flip Tiadbold over her should but the Bazhir ran into her from behind as soon as the punch landed spinning her to the floor. She hit the floor heavily and Tiadbold's foot connected with her stomach. She heard something snap, and a rush of pain but couldn't tell from where as yet another kick landed.

"Get up you slut, If you are so amazing GET UP."

She saw Tiadbold's foot coming to connect with her chest and grabbed it, hitting him in the back of the knee sending him off balance as she tried to get up. But behind her a foot connected with her back toppling her forwards again. The entire left side of her face burned and she could tell her eye was swelling already. She struggled to get up but another kick landed on her ribs, the same spot as the first two and she heard a snap and felt another rush of pain.

"GET UP NOW." Yelled Tiadbold.

She saw a fist rushing in from her good eye and rolled away into a crouch, then lurched into a standing position only to get punched in the nose and get her feet knocked from under her. Blood gushed from her nose as the floor rushed up to meet her. Her vision darkened and another foot connected with her ribs, and then another to the other side before she lost consciousness.

* * *

Newal's weeks had settled into a firm pattern by October. Every Morning he would wake up at 3; work on his fighting skills and every night he would go to bed at 9. On Sundays he would finish early and bathe before going to breakfast at 7. Then to History of immortals after that he would fly with Daine and his siblings before hanging out with Numair, eat Copper Isles with them before weekly weapons training and inspection before hanging out with Numair again before he left for dinner then more weapons practice. Monday through Saturday had him up at the same time, completing homework before weapons practice then off to breakfast at 6;30. All of his classes were hour long, in the morning before a noon lunch he would have staff fighting then on Monday, Wednesday and Friday he would have mace/ axe fighting then hand to hand before sword fighting and lance work, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday would be shield/wrestling then archery then sword then lance. After lunch was always History, reading, edicate, chivalry or math then Magical studies, a battle injury class then dinner. After dinner was the time for more homework, expect on Wednesdays, where he went to a battle lessons, learning to plan battles on lead, something he loved. He still hated how he spent more time book learning but morning practices and Wednesday battle strategies made it all worth it.

The things that did change were the amount of work he got, all the teachers gave him and his siblings more work than the others and the other pages attitude to him. More and more often work that he completed went missing, or was undone as soon as he left it; water was poured on him whenever there was a chance. There were also more and more duel cards given to him.

At first he was confused but soon Matthew explained. Every night pages gathered in the Indoor training room fought, hand to hand to decide hierarchy and to solve problems. It was the only kind of non-planned fighting the Lady Kel allowed, all fighting had to start where both side knew exactly who was fighting, no one could join in half way through the fight, no weapons, and all injuries had to be healed by another pages unless it was serious, then all pages involved got in trouble but the injured pages go to be healed completely. Almost all pages went on Saturday night but there were always duels going on no matter which night it was. Duel cards were a way are telling a person you wanted to fight them, you had to fight the person who gave you a dueling card not matter who it was. It was best to avoid having too many duel cards stacked up because then you might end up dueling with all of the them at one time. Though it was primarily for pages there was always men from the own, palace staff, Queens Riders, Squires and knights that came to watch and judge winners, they could participate but there had to be rule set so that the page didn't get beaten to a pulp by some drunk. From that he guessed having 3 dozen or so duel cards was not the best idea.

He started visiting the indoor training grounds on Saturdays. He never fought, he just watched. HE soon discovered that most of the serious fighters went on Sunday, it had bigger stakes. He was going to visit the Sunday dueling and heard one of the senior Pages yelling.

"GET UP NOW." And the sound of heavy blows, but walking into the training room was not he expected.

Standing in the middle of the room was five boys he recognized as Jehan of Faywald, Bruno of Varre, Tiadbold of Beachley, Normand of Aldwinter and Chinua ibz Achebe were standing over a mangled person on the ground kicking and in some cases punching at Aranna, yelling curses and challenging her to get up even though he could tell from here she had been beaten to unconsciousness.

Newal stared uncomprehending at the boys beating his older sister for what seemed like entirety before an inexplicable rage took over him, everything went silent and he saw red. He ran into to the room completely ignored jumped up and kicked the K'miri he designated as number 1 in the back of the head who crashed into the blond number two and fell to the floor past his sister. He threw a punch to the red headed number 3 and dodged one from the Bazhir number 4. He backed up so he was standing over his sister's limp form and got blind sighted with a punch from number. Newal jumped again and hit number 2 in the eye with first his elbow, wrist then fist. Number 4 tripped over number 1 in his haste to hit Newal with a practice staff but landed a hard hit on his left shoulder.

He landed over his sister hard but was able to dodge a kick from number 3 and trip him into number 4. Newal grabbed the staff in his right hand as number 2 kicked him in the shin, narrowly missing his sister and his face. He tumbled forward and used the time to wipe his streaming eyes, get to his feet and take bearing of his opponents, number one had crawled to the wall and was getting up, 3 and 4 were untangling themselves and number 2 was making his way to him. He quickly spun the staff as they were taught and got into a fighting position.

They looked surprised for a second before coming at him. They approach slowly and Newal noticed for the first time the pain in his left eye, which was swelling shut sand the blood dripping down the right side of his face and dripping on to his stiff shoulder. Three and four took a leap at him and he used his staff to throw 3 of his bad shoulder as he ducked and bring the other end spinning up to hit four in the face. He stood and received an unexpected tackle from the dark haired Number Five on his blind side. Five and he slid several feet before five started raining down punches anywhere he could land them. Newal jerked he suddenly stiff leg up and hit five in the crouch and rolled in to a crouching position in time to block another punch from One. The pain was extreme but numbing. As he jumped again to the left to avoid getting kicked by One. He rolled again into a fighting position and set eyes on his sister who was a distance away between him and the door. Newal watched Four as he ran past his sister and kicked her in his haste to leave, all the while trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose.

He felt himself scream as he went from kneeling to a full on sprint. He crashed into Four, knocking him to the ground and hitting him with his staff till saw the other boy pass out. Two tackled him to the ground over Four but Newal rolled out of his arms moving his staff wildly as One, Two and Five tried to land hits on him. Newal moved the staff rapidly back and forth hitting Two in the ribs and feeling them give but got hit several times by Five before Two let go. He hit Five on hard on the thick muscle between the neck and left shoulder then brought his fist up under Five's jaw and watched as the other boys eyes slid back into his head.

One tried to sneak up behind him trying to sneak up behind him but Newal expected it and hit him in the stomach, knocking the wind out from him and then hitting him hard up the side of the head to knock him out. He swung his staff into a ready positioned and located three whom he could remember hitting and found he pasted out against the wall. He threw the staff away and ran to Aranna. She was badly beaten but alive. He looked out of the doorway and saw someone and felt himself call out again.

It wasn't long after more people showed up. He watcher not fully aware what was going on as The lady Kel came and directed people to lift Aranna on a stretcher, then the five attackers. He didn't move out of the position he was standing, he couldn't if he tried, Almost all of the people were out of the room before The Lady Kel on some other person wearing the uniform of the King's Own who had been talking turned to him. Kel said something and he felt himself answer back before the room started to spin. He felt himself tilt forward and tried to corrected but fell back onto something. His vision was starting to get dark when The Lady Kel's face came near to his own. She said something, which he answered. She smiled slightly and turned her face to talk to the person behind him. Then he passed out.

* * *

Newal woke up to his father's disappointed frown. "Father, I am sorry I broke my promise I wasn't strong enough to protect Aranna I am sorry!"

His vision shifted, blurred and refocused on to a person who was defiantly not his father. The man above him was around 40, tall, fair skinned, muscular from years of fighting with weapons, with emerald eyes and light brown hair mixed with grey that swept back from a widow's peak. The man was smiling sadly.

"Sorry Newal, I am not your father, your mother was 10 years young then me, and I think your grandmother would have killed me if I had tried."

"I might still kill you Nealan, if you don't shut up." Said Alanna from somewhere at the foot of his bed.

"Don't you think you are a little old for that?" He Alanna slap him up the side of the head.

Newal suddenly become aware of how much pain he was in. His face hurt from getting hit and hearing was dimmer on the left side, almost as if the sound was whispering, his right shoulder was sore and his chest felt constricted and his ribs throbbed with every breath and heat beat. His left leg was a solid mass of pain but that was nothing to the pain of his hands, they felt like he had stuck them in a grinder. He took a deep breath and tried to sit up, but the pain and Alanna's and This Nealan's hands push him back.

"I wouldn't try to sit up if I were you, you managed to crack a few ribs, among other things" said Nealan in a drawling voice.

"Everything hurts." He complained.

"I have something for that if you think you can drink it." Said Alanna

"I'll try" He tried to sit up again before Alanna helped push him up, They placed a cup of nasty smelling tea to his mouth and forced him to swallow. He coughed and sputtered for a while but managed to get it all down. When they set him back down he spoke again "That stuff tastes like sewage"

Alanna laughed, "I think that is the purpose behind all healer medicine."

"I thought you weren't coming till midwinter."

"I was passing through on my way to visit Alan at Trebond when I saw you being taken to the infirmary so I decided to stay with you for a while."

"What happened to me?" Alanna and Nealan shared glances before he spoke.

"You got a big black eye, got clipped on the side of the head, it hit you ear, that is permanently damaged, you got a big bruise in you right shoulder. You broke several fingers, lost a lot of skin from all parts of the hand, broke a rib cracked a few others, and you got a crack in the left leg. You need to rest move before I can heal the rest of you, so you should start to get pretty tire soon."

He was getting tired but he could go to sleep yet. "How is Aranna? And the people who beat her?"

"They are healing same as you, we will tell you when you wake up again."

"But what a about—"

Alanna shushed him and bent down to whisper in his ear. "Relax Newal, she is fine, you made us proud, they might have killed her without you being there, but now you need to sleep." Alanna put her fingers over his eyes and closed them, while pouring some of her gift into him "sleep"

When he woke again he was alone and it was dark in the infirmary and only the yellow flickering or a candle at his bedside table allowed him to look around. The infirmary was full of beds all with white sheets and flat pillows; the smell of medicine gave the air a strangely sweet quality. All the walls were painted white and everything was cleaned to within an inch of his life. A few of the other beds were filled one to his left, between him and the wall, and three others at the end of the ward. It didn't take a genius to figure out who was who. He did a quick check of all his injuries and was surprised at how everything was just a little bit sore.

He sat up, it only hurt his ribs as much as a work out would, swung his legs out and stood. He was a little unsteady but he would easily be able to walk. Aranna was faced the other way so he had to walk around to see her face. The floors were stone under his feet and cold and his bare feet made small slapping noises as he went around the bed. The entire infirmary was rather cool, a little too cool to only be dressed in a bed shirt and he wished he was back in bed, but he wanted to see his sister more. The candle illuminated her face slightly and he was able to study her features. Aranna was sleeping peacefully but there was bruises under her eye, a new bump in her nose from having her nose broken and a dark bruise on her cheekbone reassured he thought about going to go back to bed but his sister's steady breaths calmed him.

Back before he came to Tortall he would always sneak into one of his siblings rooms and listen to them breathe until he found the one who calmed him the most, it was normally Aranna. However since they started page training he hadn't been able to do that and he missed doing that. He stood there for a long while just listening to her breathe when he heard another's breathing. Newal turned and saw The Lady Kel less than 5 feet away from him.

"My Lady Kel, I am sorry I didn't see you there." He whispered, surprised.

"It's ok, you were distracted… What were you doing?"

He blushed "I was listening to her breath, before I came to Tortall I used to sneak into one of my sibling's rooms to listen to them breath. Sometimes I would fall asleep listening to it, I find it peaceful."

"I like the sound of the rain better; as I grow older I find it more and more calming." He nodded. "I have to admit though if it wasn't for you it would be very unlikely that she would be breathing at all. The five boys you attacked would have killed her if not for you, of course you almost killed one of them."

He turned to face her, Kel was studying him, not judging, not glaring, her face was completely devoid of all emotion, and she was just studying him. "I honestly don't remember a lot of the fight." He told her.

"I know, you got hit in the head pretty hard. Though you probley don't remember, you told me the complete story just before you passed out, that is probley why." She pointed her chin at Aranna "You had an interesting point of view a lot of the things you said made no sense, like some of the injuries you claimed, that 'you hadn't touched them, but they got you on the floor after breaking your nose and started kicking you.' Then you mumbled for a while and came back in a different point of few, that's how I figured you did it to completely protect your sister. You called each of the boys a number based on which order you attacked them."

Newal simply stared at her; he didn't remember that at all. She watched him for a bit before continuing "If you are curious 'One' Tiadbold of Beachley just got had just a mild concussion, 'Two'; Jehan of Faywald broke some ribs, 'Three'; Bruno of Varre cracked his skull, 'Four'; Chinua ibz Achebe broke several ribs, his nose, and his skull and 'Five'; Normand of Aldwinter broke his jaw." He shook his head slowly she frowned a little. "Of course you don't remember it at all, Aranna however, cracked her skull, broke her collar bone, her arm, several fingers, several ribs, a leg, her nose, and a few bones in her feet. Not to mention some internal damage and all the bruises, cuts and scarps on her. The five boys got some too, much worse then her actually, but hers combined are much more dangerous All of them will survive but will have scars, including yourself."

The lady Kel motioned to his hands. Newal stared down at his hands confused there was still a dull ache and a throb from each beat of his heart, there were still bandages covering them, he wondered how he didn't notice that before.

"You nicked a knuckle, it will heal but you will most likely experience more problems with it later. If it aches it is most likely because it is raining, that will stay with you forever, you will also be part deaf in the left year for the rest of your life." HE turned back to her. "You won the fight, you saved your sister, managed mostly not to kill anyone, or yourself and I am not going to punish you, the other five are, because they attacked your sister without following the rules, and you did all of that in protection of your sister and yourself." Again the lady Kel paused to let that sink in "But at the same time you have two permanent injuries that will effect you all of your life, and a lot of scars. One of the boys you fought is injured badly enough that it is highly unlikely that he will ever be able to have children. Are you sure you really want to keep on with this path, you are 11 is this the life you want to look forward to? Or are you going to be one of the people who goes through life the suddenly finds themselves with nothing to stand for but a life of servitude to the crown and a trail of dead bodies spread out behind them, I have seen it. I have watched friends kill themselves with that situation behind them. Do you want to be like that?"

"I won't be that way."

Kel shook her head "That's what you say now, but it happens to anyone, it can happen to anyone. It happened to me, I got burned out by the time I was 22, I got something now, but what about those who didn't they are gone now, laced through history listed under "Honorable and Courageous Martyrs" they go out in a battle every single one of them. Think about that as you heal, I want a report on what I said before you go back to your classes." Kel turned and walked away before turning back again "In case you are curious, I didn't just tell that to you. I find a way to tell each page personally, after they get injured if possible, you all are too young to be choosing this life, but you are the only people to choose, I just hope you all chose right."

With that the lady Kel left the infirmary, Newal stared at the door for a long while after she left then turned back to his sister, suddenly her breathing was not a calming as it used to be. He stumbled back to his bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. Newal tossed and turned for hours and when he finally fell asleep his dreams were numb, cold and silent pictures of the falling rain.


	10. Chapter 9 Honor court

**Sunday November 21, 476 H.E.**

**Page Wing of the Royal Palace**

In the month since Aranna had gotten attacked Newal had done everything in his power to avoid his siblings and The Lady Kel. Newal had only stayed in the infirmary 3 more days after talking to Kel and in that time; he was never awake while Aranna was, who returned to page training the week after he did. Already Aranna had tried to corner him several times but each time he managed to evade her. He was not exactly sure why he was avoiding his sister, he had nothing to be ashamed of, it was his actions that saved her life, but he did and after the third time she had apparently given up. Newal had the sinking feeling that it was the Training Master who had stopped her; he had heard her getting the same talk he had gotten. Lady Kel never approached him again on that subject, but the look in her eye every time he saw her said she had noticed that he had never given her an essay on the subject like she had asked. Though she might have also recognized that there had been no time for him to do so.

Before he had even left the infirmary, other pages, most likely out of the group of five he had recently fought, had started their typical pattern of making his life difficult. Suddenly the floor around the chamber pot was slippery, the sheets were itchy and his daily wake up calls consisted of ice cold water or small creatures in his bed but that all came to a crashing halt with a letter he received the day he was to be released.

Written and formally addressed to 'Page Newal of Pirate's Swoop' from King Jonathan, Crown Prince Roald, and Lady Knight Keladry of Northcliff was a summons at noon on October 30th for a 'court determining his morals and honor in regards to his continuing of training to the position of Knighthood in the realm of Tortall under their Majesties King Jonathan and Queen Thayet. The Challenge to his right to continue his train was given by a member of honorable nobility in regards to the events taking place October 24th with fellow individuals in training to become Knights; 4th year Page Tiadbold of Beachley; 4th year page Jehan of Faywald; 4th year page Bruno of Varre, 4th year Page Chinua ibz Achebe, and 4th year page Normand of Aldwinter. The judges of your moral fitness and honorable nature shall be the King, The Crown prince, The Training Master, The Kings Champion, The State Advisor, The Magistrate, and 3 Knights who have proven their Fitness.' The messenger an unlucky first year squire who was forced to serve a desk knight had 5 identical letters to deliver as well, did little to comfort him. Newal had stared at that letter a long time.

"The last page to have an Honor Court Hearing was released from his training and his inheritance" he had said before skulking off to deliver the rest of the letters.

* * *

On the appointed date Newal and the five other Pages stood before their nine judges. King Jonathan sat tall and proud his hair completely silver and his face was covered in stress and laughs lines he listened and watched unflinching, never moving and hardly ever blinking. Crown Prince Roald who sat to the right of the king lean slightly to the left, resting his chin atop his closed fist though his blue eyes were fully intent on the boys before him the resemblance with his father was clear though he showed more of K'miri blood of his mother and twitched with liveliness. Lady Knight Keladry sat to the left of the king her hair pushed back in a horse tail wearing her fief colors left no daught that the kind woman they knew was replaced by a hard, no nonsense knight her hazel eyes were hard but her disappointment in all of them, though not shown by any outward sign was tangible enough that he avoided her eyes . Sir Alan of Olau, was his uncle but he had never met him before and he gave no inclination that he knew that he was judging his nephew, Sir Alan looked a lot like his mother in facial structure though his red hair was clipped close to his head and he had a long scar running down the right side of his head that was puckered and angry and another that slashed through his left eyebrow and across to his right cheek over his nose. Sir Garth of Naxen was just as old as the King but the years had not been as kind to him, his shoulders were stooped, his skin waxy and his hair falling out in patches, every 5 minutes are so his was racked by quiet coughs that looked like they would rip him apart. Lord Falco of Eastdell was short and had boar like features, ruddy skin, and muddy brown eyes but with graying hair and a weight to his few movements that should both his power as a man but the power he held as the magistrate. Sir Watson of Masbolle a was clearly a knight in his prime sitting next to sir Garth but not what he would expect of a relative of Captain Dom, he moved in his seat and wiggled his leg as a man used to movement and action, his hair was blonde but short and had the strong features but a hawk like nose and brown eyes that were close to being cross eyed. Sir Merric of Terrsmont and Sir Anders of RoseMark could have been twins of middling height and short dark hair typical of a fighting man the only difference was Merric's beard and blue eyes and Anders brown eyes and wide forehead.

Each knight sat behind a long raised desk each giving their undivided attention to each of them as they gave a strait forward account of what had happened, there was no difference in any of their stories. It was clear that the older pages had attacked Aranna due to jealousy and anger at her being female and being better than them, at how all the pirates swoops could come in from the Copper Isles having never lived in Tortall but claimed the right to try for their knighthood based off their grandmothers claim to the honorable fief of Trebond, though both their grandfather and father were commoners. Each of the judges kept a perfectly blank face throughout all the pages had said. Once they had finished the room had gone completely silent but none of them moved and it was a long moment until King Jonathan spoke.

"Now that this court has heard the testimonies from each page, it is time to judge should these pages be dismissed from training or allowed to continue under the understanding that should their honor as a knight ever be challenged again, the consequences shall be dire."

That had been the first time Newal had heard the King speak the entire court, and suddenly he could understand why people said the king was sure to retire soon. Though outwardly he appeared the perfect picture of an elderly but dignified King, short silver hair, wrinkled face, blazing sapphire eyes, neatly trimmed beard, sitting up strait and tall that emitted an aura of dignity and respectability that made one turn to him for leadership. But his voice, though still strong, showed an unmistakable tiredness; a man who had done and seen too much. He felt a sudden twitch in his ear, almost like a bug and flown into it and a quick pressure against both eardrums. After a second the king spoke again, but this time he could not hear the words, each of the judges started shifting and talking, careful to cover their mouths so he could not see their lips, but still he could not hear anything. He tugged o his ear in confusion and saw a few others of the boys do so as well before Tiadbold smacked them.

"It a spell against hearing you fool, they are making their decision"

The next five minutes seemed like an eternity to Newal and a chocking panic gripped him. What if they choose to dismiss him? He could not stand the look on his family's face if he was kicked out, he had spent a long time dreaming of this. He would not be sent home, they would have to kill him before he left, and he would become a knight no matter what he had to do or who he had to beat. His thoughts continued and he barely noticed that all the movement of the judges had stopped and the pressure on his ears had subsided.

"-final, there will be no further deliberation, Being a Knight is more than fighting, or leading other individuals into battle, Being a Knight is about protecting those who need it, answering the call of your country and defending it through thick and thin, against all physical, emotional and moral abuses." King Jonathon was standing and looking at each page in the eye before he continued "That is why, if these judges have decided that your actions have reflected a lack of morals, you will be released from page training and sent home at first light tomorrow."

Newal tried to swallow the fear that clung to his throat as the King sat and Lady Kel stood. " This Court has decided that based on the actions last Sunday, that 4th year Page Tiadbold of Beachley; 4th year page Jehan of Faywald; and 4th year Page Chinua ibz Achebe, shall be dismissed and escorted home tomorrow morning at first light, do not attend any further classes today, do not attend meals with the rest of the pages, pack up you gear tonight and be in the main court yard at first light with all your belonging."

Newal released a breath of air he did not know he was holding, he turned just slightly to watch an angry red faced Tiadbold slap the hands of the King's own men who was following him out the day, Jehan had gone extremely pale and seemed like he was almost about to vomit. Chinua accepted the hand the soldier placed on him as he walked out the door almost completely blank faced. Suddenly lightheaded he turned back to face the Lady Kel.

"As you the remainder of you 1st year page Newal of Pirates Swoop; 4th year page Bruno of Varre; and 4th year page Normand of Aldwinter, for the rest of today you we go on to the rest of your duties, however, none of you will have leave until midwinter celebration, and until that time during your punishment hours from fourth bell to the dinner bell on Sundays you will spend it cleaning the weapons and chainmail in the armory. Carry –"

* * *

It was with a heavy heart that Kel closed the Book of Pages, compiled by Lord Wyldon, it held the name of every person who had tried for knight hood in the last 40 years, their knight master and important event during their knighthood and finally their death dates. Registering Tiadbold, Jehan and Chinua as being dismissed from training was harder in many ways then having dismissed them. She leaned back in her chair and started fingering with the necklace around her neck. None of those boys were truly bad at heart in her mind, she could still remember their first day at the castle and how scared they were. But they could not continue training if they were willing to attack another page just because that page was a female and they were jealous of her skills. At least the boys had not lied about their intensions; there would have been more serious consequences. Their dismissal was a necessary evil, it had been Tiadbold and Jehan to come up with the basic plan, but it had been Chinua, the person she had seen so much hope for as a strategist that had come up with the final plan to attack her. The other two she was not worried about both Normand and Bruno they were merely followers and would not have come to the conclusion themselves. She was more worried about Newal. He was extremely protective of his sisters and his violent way of protecting them had nearly killed Normand and his male parts may never recover.

She seriously disagreed with the choice to admit all four of Aly's children to page training at once. Her own children were two years apart and that was close enough for her. Yet she was not surprised that she had gotten multiple children from that group. Since she had taken over as training master just about 8 years again and female pages became more common she had seen more and more family groups represented in the pages. Now it wasn't all that uncommon to see a daughter and a son from the same house or even two or three. It was good in some ways, there were more nobles training to be knights then ever in living memory, a new wind was built in the palace especially for the 56 pages now 53 and 39 squires currently training to become knights. But it was bad in others that now families were sending children they never would have dared to send before, emotional disorders, the ugly daughters, the troubled preteens, all the ones previously swept under the rug come out of the wood works and showed up on her doorstep. She turned away a one or two before they even showed up but she still had to weed a few out before they could become squires.

Kel stood and put the book on the shelves feeling and hearing all of her joints stain and pop. She was getting too old for this, she had had too many years behind this desk, her children had been young when she got the job, but now her youngest was 8 and her oldest was almost done with her page training. This midwinter the first group of pages she had trained were becoming Knights, having completed their squiring, there was a total of ten and three girls, plus one of her nieces and nephews, Madison and Lachlan would be going into the chamber and already the conservatives were howling that none of them would achieve success because she had trained them, she was beginning to ache to return to the field but she had, rather foolishly, just promised King Jon and Prince Roald 5 more years. Kel no longer bothered to avoiding being blunt, most of the time she was tired enough to just say what she meant just to be done with it, more often than not now every time Dom was home they argued and it was perhaps the most backward argument she had ever be a part of. It was her stopping Dom from retiring to marry her, which not twelve years ago she had promised to do so, the diamond ring hanging on the thong around her neck, next to her pregnancy charm was proof of that, but something stopped her each time, that told her that he would get bored doing nothing all day. Yet right now the last thing she wanted to be was drag herself off to her quarters to either find Dom, still angry over their earlier argument, or a cold bed signaling that his company had gotten called to repair the damage done by bandits in the northeast part of the country, and at that moment Kel was not really sure which was worse. Kel sighed checked her office one more time and left.

* * *

It was with a heavy heart that Dunie moved her queen across the board and in front of her king and watched as Jet's knight took her out and placed the queen with a pile of her other chess pieces, which consisted of about half her pieces. She glanced at the tiny pile of his pieces…three pawns and a horse. She glared at Jet across the chess board, his eyes were dancing and his lips were pulled up in a small smile.

"I hate you….Play again?"Jet broke into a full on smile and he re set the board.

Jets constant silence had thus far lasted the entire time she had known him, but she had become used to the silence and had come to be able to recognize what he was trying to say in just his eyes and facial expression, the only sound she had ever heard from him was a small chuckle which had come from a month and a half of extraction. Which had only come once Edlin had gone on a long rant about something or another and Kalisa had tackled him into a wall in mid sentence…? It had been the funniest thing she had seen in her whole life.

Now that page training was in the middle of November Dunia had fallen into a specific pattern in her life that she found she loved more than anything, the training the knowledge, the challenge, the feeling that she had every night when she fell into bed; weary, exhausted, covered in bruises and sores, her knuckles scrapped from fighting and hand tired from holding a pen; she loved it all.

The only thing that she did not like about the page training was how distant it made her and her siblings. Aranna completely avoided all of them accept for Newal who since his honor court had done everything in his power to never be in the same room with them. Even her and Junia were more distant even though more often than not one or the other of them would fall asleep in each other's bed like they used to do when they were younger, Junia just missed the being a spy part of it too much and would spend some of her time writing coded letters to grandfather. Personally after seeing a lot of what he did she lost interest, ma always let her and Junia help and let them do the more fun part of the spymasters job, hiding and locking all important documents that were boring some place they could not gain access to but if anything Junia had become more interested and suddenly the smallest thing between them turned their silenced uncomfortable and it quickly filled up with talks about training and Kalisa's and Edlin's usual bickering, Thomas's anger problems and Jet's constant silent sarcasm. Yet the time they both spent training prevented them from working it out and so it sat, though they both still managed their morning flight around the grounds to watch the all the earliest morning activities.

* * *

i am really sorry it took so long, but i recently remembered it and i loved the story line so i picked this back up, because i did not want to do homework... as per usual... sorry it took so long... but i am pretty sure i got the next couple chapters planned out adn those should go pretty fast, and plus i wrote the beginning of a chapter that will take place much later but it was supposed to be the end of this one but i keep forgetting about puberty... i am 16 so i am used to the dirty jokes and harmones adn what not of highschool, i forgot newal was only 11 and suddenly i had be checking out pretty girls...my bad i was about 2 years early, oh wellll.... entil the next time i do not want to do homework

Updated 1-3-10


	11. Chapter 10 Midwinter

**Tuesday, December 21, 476 H.E.**

**Lower portions of Corus**

Nibel kicked his left leg up and towards the right, forcing Aknil to drop roll over his head and pop up on the other side and put his arms behind his cousins back as he used the momentum from his kick to flip himself backwards and in spiral. He landed on his feet them both pages performed of series of kicks and flips until they were side by side performing back flips and barrel rolls to the crowds applause. With a final flip the tall, dark Bazhirs landed on their knees arms out encouraging the crowds.

Aranna and Jalisa clapped and 'whooped' along with the best of them and laughed as both boys continued their impromptu performance with more acrobatics, juggling and a player act. The two pages finished with their favorite juggling routine and bowed to the crowds applause before making their way to them through the crowd putting hands on children's heads and passing a few coppers to the more desperate looking youths.

"you know once you retire I think you could become the two highest paid court jesters in Tortall" Jalisa said clapping them both on their backs as they headed again down the street.

**"**What and miss all the fun we have with our dear Lady Kel?" Aknil did his best to sound horrified as he pulled on the thick winter clothing we held for them.

"That would be terrible!" joked Nibel "I would pine without our kind and gentle lady to lovingly guide us into knighthood"

"Oh yes we have our fair Lady to thank for a few of those tricks, that extra 'love giving' sessions last week really put us in to the next level of entertainment"

All four of them busted up laughing at the idea. The Lady Kel's new idea of training this December was to face your fears in every way possible, while keeping you as busy a possible. Most of the pages would have rather camped in the freezing temperatures and the 4 feet of snow that had accumulated recently then faced their fears as only she would have them do. Afraid of illness? Go learn from Sir Neal about how to halt the raging epidemic of illness in the Lower City. Afraid of the Dark? Enjoy the midnight training sessions in the oldest apparently haunted part of the castle. Afraid of losing those you love? Enjoy spending time making plans for when those around you die. Spiders? Up in the attic. Blood? The butchers shop. Getting Hurt? The Kings Own murderous new 4th company's training regime with Sir Warren of DiamondPeak where you have a near 100% chance of having at least 3 trips to the Own's healers. You fear it The Lady Kel made you face it all week there was no escaping your fate.

The pages had been in a near constant depression because of the training but no one had quit. The Lady Kel was surprisingly kind to those who 'tapped out' they merely went out on a rider's two week training camp out in the snow. Those who struck through it got the week off and except for serving and a few training sessions, they were allowed to take liberty. They were able to go into Corus, attend midwinter festivities and if your family was in town, spend time with them. For many of the Pages it had been their best midwinter ever. For Aranna however, her first midwinter as a page was filled with devastating disappointments.

The Lady Kel had called them all into her office before 'hell week' as they had come to call it and told them that 'no, they were not going to be able to go home or any amount of time to say goodbye to their rapidly ailing father'. The four of them were devastated and not even the news of their new brothers Durham and Duncan and the wonderful portraits they received that had even the four of them painted in next to their parents stopped the despair Aranna felt in the pit of her stomach.

Her friends did their best to counteract the depression that fell on her. The twins regularly did their circus acts both in private and in front of large crowds so she could watch. Jalisa used her snide sarcastic jokes and abusive personality to torture all of them in order to make her laugh. Darien even added few jokes when things got too serious. Derrick with assistance from Jarred both tried to involve her with all the practical jokes they attempted to come up with only succeeding one, which involved food in the wall hangings. Of course the Lady Kel found out and had everyone cataloguing every bit of food they had used, who cooked it, who purchased it, who ordered it, where the money came from and how to make it.

When her friend were busy and when ever she was up, which was most of the time no she spent throwing herself into fighting, regularly attending the fight sessions and taking on multiple opponents at once not holding back in anyway. She broke her arm in one difficult match with the biggest and oldest squire of the year Richard of Wendar. She herself broke the limbs, noses and fingers of several pages and squires like the Linley brother and sister, Copperlake's heir, WinterBrook and Eastdell. Other times she spent flying until she could barely flap her wings, finding the most dangerous places to fly. Going on the steepest of drives towards cobblestone roads and only to pull up so low her chest feathers scraped against the smoothed stone anything to get that rush of feeling that a deep depression prevented. The only thing that made her pull up was the shining light of being a knight and she held to that dream as the drowning does a piece of wood.

**

* * *

**

Saturday, February 19, 477 H.E.

**The Harbor**

**Rajmuat in the Copper Isles**

The dawns earliest light barely crested the horizon, casting eerie shadows upon the people assembled at the docks. Tall, slim men with gangly limbs dressed in their finest stood poised on the docks on either side next to small flames wielding long slender bows and lit arrow fitted to the string. Bask on the beach the only sound was the distant sound of pounding waves on the rocks outside the harbor while the group dressed in black huddled together for warmth and comfort. A small group was set further apart from the main, mostly short with a few caretakers and the closest friends stood watching as a small slight woman dressed in a Tortallian style dress and veil pushed a small boat from the shore into the ocean. A small push of wind blew the boat into the middle of the harbor and eons seemed to pass in silence before she raised her arm and numbly let it drop to her side.

Twenty flaming arrows released as one and landed on the boat imbedding into the wood with a heavy _thunk._ For an instant id did nothing, a gust of wind seemed to blow on the flames. Then the oil and tinder ignited engulfing the small vessel with a _wush_. One of the infants let out a small cry before instantly being hushed. The main part of the group high on the shore left shortly after the boat was fully engulfed in flame, moving quietly heading back to the warmth and breakfast at the gray palace.

It was only when the flames were almost dead when the children of the family headed back to the palace, the little ones hands were becoming chilled in those of their elders. However their mother waited, holding fast to the rocks closest to the smoldering boat ignoring the cold and wind buffeting her dress for hours as her husbands body burned into ash and the fire died. As twenty crow warriors went to retrieve the boat in little crafts of their own, conversing only in quiet crow noises. As the ashes were gathered and carefully taken to a small platform. As the ashes were evenly divided into 14 parts and put into special capsules. As all the ashes were taken up to the palace. As the crows all left in search of their home nests.

Aly stood at that spot as the sun raised higher and higher into the sky. The winds picked up and clouds formed overhead threatening a storm. The sun reached its peak and began to fall again into the horizon when she turned from the sea and regretfully returned to place that once held all she loved.

**

* * *

**

Friday, March 11, 477 H.E.

**37Th year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen **

**Page Wing of the Royal Palace**

Kel looked the small package in front of her, it was tiny the size of her children at birth but with none of the joy. She stared at it with dread in the pit of her stomach, not daring to touch it to confirm its reality, and wanting to put off what she had to do for as long as possible but knowing that she could not.

There was a knock at the door and she bid them to enter. Four pale pages stood before her wearing the colorful uniforms of the pages that did little to hide how stiff they were and the thick tension in the air. All their hair looked unkempt with deep circles under their eyes. Aranna's broken arm and cut up face attested to her recent destructive behavior. Newal's untidy uniform, ashen face and stiff shoulder set attributed to the number of fights he had gotten into recently, and the amount of time he spent training. Both the twins were hunched in on them selves but separate standing with their brother between them seeming just as introspective as they had been for the last 3 months. Hands shaking and their eyes set to the ground they all knew what they had been called in here for and were merely waiting for her to say it aloud.

Kel stood and swiftly cut open the package and set the four envelopes on the desk each bearing the name of one of the pages in front of them. Four sets of eyes locked on to the packages in front of them

"This package came in this afternoon from the Copper Isles" Kel took a deep breath "I am sorry but I am afraid that your father has passed away, these were left to each of you"

Junila took a shuddering breath and hesitantly reached her arm out to her bag then quickly grabbed it and bolted from the room. They other two girls followed suit and left Newal standing fist and eyes clenched. For a long while Kel watched him knowing when a boy needed his space, then she began to move around her desk maternal instinct demanding she comfort a boy in his time of need. His red tear-filled eyes snapped open wildly and grabbed the package and left her office before she had time to move more then a few steps. She returned to her seat and sat down heavily staring at the letter from the pages mother that informed her in detached tones of the death of her husband and of his wishes for his children and instructions for her if she would allow those wishes to become reality.

* * *

The return to her room seemed a million times longer and more difficult. Her feet were led bricks she could hardly even shuffle across the floors or up the stairs. Her legs were wobbly like they would not support her. Her body felt like one massive ache and her left hand seemed to burn from the envelope that she could hardly grip. She felt faint lost and could hardly focus on what she saw, she passed things in the passages but could not register what they were, what they said or respond. Her throat was clenched and she could barely breathe. When Aranna finally reached her room and opened her door she found her mind was completely blank.

Nothing surfaced in her mind as far as thought or what to she just leaned against her door staring at the wall in front of her. The fire that had been a constant companion to her through the cold Tortallian winter shed no warmth that her numb skin could feel. The muffled noises of the castle around her that she had gotten used to seemed non-existent. The world around her faded and all she could focus on was a spot on the white wall in front of her that was no different then any other.

A soft knock on her door whether a second later or an age made her surface from her stare and she wiped the few tears that had slid down her cheeks away before answering the door. Her brother stood on the other side. His face and eyes were red, his hair stood up at odd places. His pages uniform was torn and ruffled as if her had been tearing at it.

They stared at each other for a long while before she blinked and they were wrapped in each others embrace weeping like they hadn't since their Father had first gotten injured. Two other sets of arms wrapped around them as the twins made joined in. Some how the door was closed and they moved into her room crying and hiccuping on to the bed.

* * *

When the sun rose again Aranna's eyes were burning. They had watched the golden light fade from her room as the sun set, then return gray and pale.

"Do you remember that time that Ma had to go to the Yamani Isles so it was just us and Da, right after Myles was born?" She whispered to Newal trying not to wake the twins.

The ghost of a smile pasted across his lips "He took us to the market and we brought so many shiny things that the room glowed with even one candle"

"And we accidentally dropped Lokian into puddle of mud"

He chuckled quietly "we took him to Da where he dropped him into a rain bucket"

"Lokian had been crying when we gave him to Da but stopped when Da dropped him."

"Da just laughed but Lokian messed his diaper." They faded into silence remembering the fond memory

"What about that time we decided to hide from Ma after the triplets were born and she could not find us anywhere?"

Newal laughed more earnestly "Da found us stuck in a barrel with fish down on the docks and rolled us all the way back to Ma"

"He acted like we were a delivery for the celebration we were having that night."

"Yeah that was great. Do you remember how he used to play Bull dogs with us?"

"Oh Yes we would try to ride him and he would bring us down and tickle us and blow on our stomachs"

"Ma made us stop when we got too big"

"But Da still let us play when she was not around."

They traded stories back and forth all day, the twins joining in when they woke up. They laughed and cried and held to each other throughout the day eating the small amount of food that she had stashed away ignoring the soft knocks that sounded on the door at times. When they fell asleep that night Aranna felt closer to her siblings then she had since before they left and just a tiny bit better about loosing her father.

* * *

At some point on Sunday a soft knock at the door drew Dunia out of the comfortable nest of her siblings and to open the door. Jet was standing outside with large plate of the most delicious smelling thing she had smelled since she got to Tortall.

"Jet, wow thank you," she said as she took it from the other page.

"I have a lilac and puce colored toad in my left trouser pocket" He said in a surprisingly deep but smooth voice before he turned around and walked away. She blinked at the first words he had ever said to her before laughing so hard her siblings looked at her in wonder.


End file.
